Freedom Series 3: Survival
by Nail Strafer
Summary: It's a struggle for survival. Sonic and Tails are running out of food, supplies, and money. To make matters worse, they're trapped in a nation being ripped apart by Robotnik's latest war campaign. Will they be able to stay alive?
1. Dying Flames

**Before we get to the story, I've got some disclaimers I'd like to issue: **

**- All official characters and locations belong to Sega and Sonic team. Otherwise, all characters and locations belong to me. **

**- This story is a PREQUEL to the Sonic Movie, and to before Sonic and Tails become famous through fighting Robotnik. That's why Sonic and Tails are both younger than their usual ages. As for why Sonic is three years younger than his official age and Tails is only two, I wrote the plot of Freedom Series so that Sonic's birthday occurs later in the year than Tails' one. **

**- Reading Freedom Series 1 and 2 is recommended before reading this story, but it's not required. Still, if you want to get the full enjoyment out of this story, I encourage you to go back and read 1 and 2 before looking at this one. **

**- Now that we've got those things out of the way, enjoy the story. **

**FREEDOM SERIES 3: SURVIVAL **

**Chapter 1: Dying Flames**

**March 3rd, 2314 – 4:50 PM – Forest Town, Elona**

A massive cloud of black smoke billowed up over the tops of the quiet houses. It was so large and so tall that it almost blotted out the mid-afternoon sun. This wasn't right at all. That cloud of smoke belonged on a battlefield somewhere far away, not here in the middle of a peaceful city.

"D-d-daddy..." Tails stammered, watching the cloud as it continued its upward spiral into the sky. His knees quaked, nearly knocking against each other from fear. Someone roughly grabbed him by the arm.

"Come on!" Sonic yelled at him. "We have to hurry Tails!"

Tails nodded to the blue hedgehog standing next to him.

"L-Let's go Sonic..." Tails said, choking out the words through the tears.

"Hang on!"

The hedgehog's feet began to move so fast, that the red sneakers made his feet look like nothing but a giant red wheel. They took off down the street with the speed of a jet fighter, Tails' feet flew off the ground due to the high speed, and he flapped in the air like a flag as he clung to Sonic's hand. Within less than a minute, they were back at the university, where the two of them had left Kyle Prower to fight the insane Dr. Robotnik and his egg pod. Tails knew his father had told them to run, but he just couldn't leave his dad behind like that. He had finally talked Sonic into going back to the college, but was it too late?

Sonic screeched to a halt outside of the college's parking lot, which was the source of the fire. The plumes of smoke were flying up from the burning husks of the parked cars, making it difficult to breathe. Tails coughed and wheezed as the smoke reached his nostrils, filling his lungs. His father Kyle was in that smoldering wreckage somewhere, and they needed to save him.

"Come on!" Sonic said as he jogged into the firestorm. "Let's find your dad!"

Tails took a look at the massive flames, terrified of getting burned to death, but the worry for the safety of his father quickly overrode his pyrophobia. He ran right after Sonic into the blaze. The two of them darted around, covering their faces with their hands to keep from inhaling too much smoke. Occasionally, they called out Kyle's name, but there was never a response.

After about a minute of searching through the blackness, Tails heard Sonic scream, "Tails! Over here!"

Tails followed the sound of Sonic's voice, and eventually saw the blue hedgehog kneeling next to a still burning corpse. He could hear Sonic sniffling, as if he were about to start crying. The hedgehog looked up as he approached, with tears about to slide down his face. Tails looked at Sonic, and opened his mouth to say 'That's Dad?' but no words came out. Sonic seemed to have understood him just fine though. He nodded to confirm that yes, it was Kyle Prower. He held up an assault rifle that was lying next to the corpse, and Tails instantly recognized it as his father's gun. There was no mistaking it, even if it was covered with black soot, dents and scratches from what was definitely an explosion.

However, as Tails glanced at the corpse, he saw that his father's body had fared much worse. Most of the red fur on the front of the body had been charred off, and the flames were beginning to melt the skin, exposing the innards. Shards of shrapnel protruded from the flesh. His blood formed a puddle on the blacktop around the body. Still worse was the face. It was frozen into a silent scream of agony, showing that he had been in horrifying pain right before the end. If it weren't for the rifle nearby, Tails might not have even recognized his father's corpse, with how much the flames had mutilated it.

Tails fell down on his knees next to the body, tears flooding out of his eyes in full force. They fell upon the flames of his father's body and vaporized into steam as they made contact.

"Dad...Dad...wake up!" Tails screamed.

Tails wanted to try to shake his father awake, but the flames were preventing him from touching the body. Despite the flames, the young six-year-old fox continued to cling to the belief that it was impossible for his father to die. Your dad wasn't supposed to die, because he was supposed to be the strongest man on the planet, right?

"Tails, he's dead..." Sonic said slowly, between sobs.

"No, he can't be!" Tails yelled at Sonic, the tears in his eyes making the twelve-year-old hedgehog before him look like a formless blue blob. "He's my dad!"

"Tails, he died," Sonic said, this time a little more sternly. "Quit pretending that he's still alive, 'cause he's not."

"No!" Tails shouted, shaking his head.

"Robotnik must have got him," Sonic said angrily, clenching his fist. The tears dried from his eyes. "I should have stayed and helped him! Instead I ran away and let him die! I feel like such an idiot!"

Sonic stood up and kicked the side of a car nearby. However, as his foot hit the metal body, an explosion erupted from the opposite side of the vehicle. It wasn't very big, but it was enough to send Sonic and Tails tumbling to their feet. Tails slowly stood up, and looked at Sonic. The hedgehog looked totally surprised that one simple little kick could make an explosion that big.

However, surprise gave way to terror as they heard the sound of a familiar jet engine from inside the flames. Robotnik emerged from the clouds of black smoke in his small personal ship. He must have been the one who caused the explosion. A devilish grin crossed the doctor's face as he looked down at the two youngsters. The light from the flames of the burning cars reflected off of Robotnik's glasses, making him look like a demon with fire in his eyes. The doctor and his ship appeared to be in mint condition despite the surroundings, which meant that the fight between him and Kyle had been more of a slaughter rather than a battle.

"You think you feel like an idiot now Sonic," Robotnik said. "Just wait until I tell you this. Kyle, that fool, gave up his pathetic life just to give you a minute at most to escape me, and by coming back here you've even thrown that away. Yes, thanks to you, Kyle's death was nothing but a complete and utter waste!"

Sonic clenched his fist, his fingers digging into his hand so deeply Tails wouldn't be surprised if blood started to seep out.

"Damn you!" Sonic screamed.

Tails watched as the scene unfolded before him. Sonic leaped towards the ship the mad doctor was flying in, curling into a ball and preparing to smash into it like a wrecking ball. Before he could reach the human's ship, he was shot down by one of Robotnik's laser cannons. The hedgehog screamed as he crashed to the ground. Sonic held one hand to a bleeding hole in his leg, as he moaned out his anguish. He gazed up at Robotnik with the most intensely hateful gaze Tails had ever seen in his life. Sonic looked like if he could, he would tear Robotnik apart with his bare hands, limb from limb.

"I was expecting more from Swift Hedgehog's son," Robotnik haughtily said. "Oh well, not that it matters much to me. Say hello to your dad for me, Sonic!"

Sonic growled, and then he started to get up despite his leg injury. Before he could stand up again though, a hail of laser fire from Robotnik's ship tore into his body, the assault so violent and sudden that he was literally torn to pieces. Tails looked away as his adopted brother's body fell...no...splattered to the ground. The fox felt like he was going to throw up, between the choking flames, the emotional blow from the loss of his family, and the gruesome scene he had just witnessed.

"And now fox boy, it's time for you to join your own father as well," Robotnik coldly said.

Tails turned around and looked up at the mad doctor, the doctor looking back at him with those devilish yellow eyes produced by the fire's light. Robotnik brought the laser gun to bear on the child's forehead, and fired. The fox briefly felt the laser tear through his skull and into his brain. Then there was a blinding white light, and then darkness...nothing more...

Tails jerked his eyes open, jumping up and hitting his head on the low ceiling of the cardboard box he was sleeping in. He frantically gazed around the blackness of the inside of the box, expecting to see those glowing devil eyes looking at him again, but he saw nothing. He moved a hand across his forehead, and felt no laser hole. All Tails felt was the three hairs he usually liked to have sticking out of his forehead.

_It's okay...it was just that nightmare again..._

This time though, for some reason it felt a lot more real than it had the other nights. So real, in fact, that Tails actually did feel sick at his stomach, like he had in the dream. He realized he was rapidly approaching the danger zone, and hurriedly jumped out of his cardboard box. He only just got out in time as he took a deep breath and threw up last night's dinner all over the alleyway. As Tails coughed up the last of it, he heard Sonic's box rustling as he struggled to get out of his own "room". Sonic walked over to Tails and put his hands on his shoulders.

"Hey, you okay?" Sonic whispered.

Tails nodded, trying to cough the rotten taste of his vomit out of his mouth.

"Come over here," Sonic said, walking over to a small water faucet sticking out of the brick wall on the other side of the alley. "Drink some water."

Sonic turned the rusty valve with one hand, the old handle squeaking as the water came pouring out. Tails cupped his hands underneath the faucet to collect the water, and brought it up to his mouth. He gulped it down and it was freezing cold. Some of it tricked down his neck and chest, making him shiver. Tails was more intent on getting that terrible taste out of his mouth though, as he drank several more handfuls of water from the faucet. After he was done, he brushed a hand across his neck and chest fur, trying to get it dry. As he finished doing that, he saw Sonic turning the handle back, cutting off the stream of water.

"Did you have that nightmare again?" Sonic asked.

Tails just nodded his head.

"It must have really been bad if it got you this sick," the hedgehog said. "Remember though, what you saw didn't really happen. See? Both of us are still here."

"I know," Tails said.

The actual event was only slightly different from what Tails saw in his nightmares. At the start of the dream, his mother Natalie had just finished a de-roboticizer that she had been working on. His dad Kyle had been roboticized during the Robotnik War six years ago, and he had been stuck in a robot body for all that time. However, right after his de-roboticization was complete, Robotnik blew up the lab, and Natalie was killed when a part of the ceiling collapsed on top of her. Kyle told Sonic and Tails to run away to safety while he fought Robotnik, and they did that. However, Tails was terrified for his dad, and he convinced Sonic to take him back to the college. When they got there, all the cars in the parking lot were on fire, and Kyle's burned body was in the middle of them.

This was where the dream broke off from what actually happened. In the dream, Robotnik came back and killed him and Sonic. However, in reality, they saw Robotnik's badly-damaged ship burning on the ground, near Kyle's body. Robotnik himself was nowhere to be found, so the two of them figured he was still alive. They went to the airport and took off in a plane that belonged to Sonic's late father Swift, called the Tornado. They had been flying all over Planet Freedom since then, looking for a new home where they would be safe from Robotnik. If they just stayed in Forrest Town, Robotnik would surely be back for them. They hadn't been able to find a new place to live yet.

_Why did we have to be the only ones to live? Why couldn't my mom and dad have lived too?_

It seemed like a million years had passed since he had seen his parents dead, when in actuality it had only been nine days. Nine days ago, he was still worried about turning in a science project on time, he never had to think about whether or not he was going to eat that night, he still had a real room and parents he could come home to, and he had thought that the terrible Robotnik his father had told him about was dead.

It was amazing how much his life had been changed in just a few minutes on that day. It wasn't supposed to happen that fast. Now he and Sonic were homeless, and unsure of what to do. Their dread continued to increase with every day. Their supplies were almost completely used up, the Tornado was nearly out of fuel, and they had no money left. Running around on foot with an empty stomach sure didn't sound attractive, but before long they would have no choice but to do it.

Tails had thought everything was going to be okay when Sonic told him that they were going to get through this, no matter what. Tails believed him, because Sonic had helped him when he was in trouble a lot of times in his life. However, he was starting to realize the cold, hard reality of the situation they were in. It wasn't as easy as Sonic made it out to be. He no longer had a nice warm bed to sleep in at night, the two of them had to scavenge in garbage cans for food, and worst of all both of them had no family left now.

"We should have stayed with Carrie," Tails mumbled. "Then we would have still had beds to sleep in."

They ran into a friendly white wolf named Carrie Strafer about a week ago, and she had shared some of her supplies with them, but she was gone now. They had left her at her new home in Nedlo, the capital city of Tneicna. Sonic had said that the two of them should go find their own home rather than stay with her, but he was starting to regret that decision. They couldn't just fly back to Tneicna again either, because there wasn't enough fuel left in the Tornado to do that.

"I know Tails," Sonic said. "It was a stupid idea to just leave her. I didn't think things would get this bad."

Tails nodded. He looked up at the sky above the tops of the buildings around them, but saw nothing but black clouds. There wasn't a single star out tonight. The sky had been like that ever since they had arrived in this place.

That was about five hours ago. They had decided to touch down after the Tornado got down to about one eighth of its fuel tank capacity. The first place they saw that could serve as a suitable makeshift runway was an open field in the middle of a forest. After hiding the Tornado behind a bunch of trees and covering it with loose branches, they took off walking. They had seen a city in the distance as they were coming down to land, so they decided to go there in the hopes that they could find food.

When they had entered town, nobody was running around on the streets, and there were very few lights on in the windows they saw. So, the two of them had tried their best to go to sleep, since they couldn't see much of anything in the dark anyway. It felt like the whole city reeked of shadows and loneliness. The only light in the alleyway came from a flickering caged light bulb above a nearby doorway. It felt like they were standing on a small island of light in the middle of a sea of darkness. What made it all the more worse was that neither of them had any idea where this city was, exactly.

"I don't like this place Sonic," Tails said. "It's really scary and dark, like a cave with a monster in it. Why did we have to come down here? I don't even know where in the world we are. "

"Who knew where that warp zone would take us?" Sonic asked. "Don't worry Tails, I promise we'll leave this place today when it gets bright again."

"You promise?" Tails said.

"Yeah," Sonic said, flashing him a thumbs up sign. "We'll leave after we sleep a little bit longer."

Tails' face brightened up a little.

"Let's go on back to bed," Sonic said with a grin. "The sooner we go to bed, the sooner we can wake up again and get out of here."

"Okay Sonic," Tails said, smiling back. "See you in the morning."

Even though they were still in a lot of trouble, Sonic's little promise of getting out of this dark and dreary city had really helped to brighten Tails' mood. It couldn't be soon enough that they left this place. Sonic climbed back into the box he was sleeping in and Tails did the same. The young kit curled up into a ball, trying to keep in as much body heat as he could.


	2. Toys!

**Chapter 2: Toys!**

**March 12th, 2314 – 7:00 AM – Location Unknown**

Sonic's eyes slowly drifted open as he slept in his cardboard box, the top flap of the box open to allow in some light. The hedgehog noticed that it was still dark, and began to close his eyes again to go back to sleep. It was then that he noticed the city had come to life since the last time Tails had woken him up. Sonic could hear the sound of horns honking, people calling out to each other, and distant echoes of music from blaring stereos. He poked his head out of the box, and looked down the alleyway towards the street. The pedestrians and passing cars could be seen moving back and forth, despite the fact it was still dark.

_What's going on? _

Sonic jumped out of his box, and opened Tails' box. The little orange fox was still curled up into a ball inside it, almost like a cat, and he was sound asleep despite the noise. Sonic decided not to wake him up yet. He walked out of the alley and onto the street. Even though it was still as dark as when Tails had woken him up over his nightmare, the street was very active. A turtle wearing an expensive-looking business suit was walking towards Sonic. The hedgehog's eyes moved from his bald green head and glasses, down to his left arm, which had a golden watch fastened to it.

"Umm..." Sonic started as the businessman was about to pass him. "Excuse me sir."

The turtle stopped to look at Sonic. "Yes? What is it my young man?"

"Could you tell me what time it is?"

The turtle flicked his arm up towards his face, and squinted at his watch through his glasses.

"Why...it's 7:10 AM my boy," the turtle simply said. "It's morning! Everyone's starting to get around."

"But it's still dark..."

"Are you stupid or--"

The turtle suddenly paused in mid sentence, and then he nodded as if he'd just remembered something. He spoke again.

"You've never been to the Land of Darkness before, have you?"

"The Land of Darkness?" Sonic shook his head. "No."

"Well, you're standing in it right now, I hope you know," the turtle told him, as he pointed to the ground beneath them. "We're in the city of Mor in Zeraw right now. Anyway, since you've never been here before, I'll explain it for you. See, this is the surface of Planet Freedom. Above our heads are the flying continents, which make up the Land of the Sky." The turtle pointed up at the black clouds. "Those continents up there suck a lot of the sunlight, and the cloud cover catches most of what's left. So, a lot of light isn't able to make it all the way down here. That's why it's dark down here all the time, even during the day."

"I wouldn't like to live here," Sonic said. "My dad told me that this place was really rotten and dark..."

"He's right, but this place is cheap to live in, that's for sure!" the turtle told him with a grin. "For the cost of a ratty two-bedroom apartment in some Land of the Sky city like Gerrant, Cictra, I could get a very well-appointed condo down here. Still, if I wasn't so stingy about saving my money, I'd get out of here as soon as possible. I think you'd do well to leave the area too, kid. Anyway, I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, so I have to go." The turtle started to walk away, and waved to Sonic as he left. "I'll see you later."

"Bye..." Sonic said, as he waved back.

_So that's where we are, Zeraw in the Land of Darkness. Isn't Zeraw the country that makes all the computers and video games for the rest of the planet? Tails said he'd like to come visit here, back when we were still living with his parents. I bet telling him that will cheer him up. _

Sonic dashed back into the alley, and gently kicked the box Tails was sleeping in. "Hey Tails, wake up."

Tails' eyes fluttered open, but he started to close them again a second later. "Aww Sonic, it's still dark. Let's sleep some more..."

"No Tails, we're just in the Land of Darkness, so it's always dark out here like this. I found out that it's 7:10 in the morning, so it is time to get up."

"Well, okay..." Tails muttered, as he rose up out of his box. The fox stretched and yawned, his tails fluffing out and then flattening back again.

"I found out something you might like. We're in Mor, Zeraw. You know...the country that makes all of the video games and computers for Planet Freedom?"

"Really?" Tails said, his eyes brightening. "Cool! I always wanted to come here and see all of the cool electronic stuff they make here!"

"So...I guess you want to stay in the city a little bit longer then?"

"You bet! I wanna go look around!"

Sonic smiled back at him, glad that Tails was finally cheering up again after leaving Carrie back in Tneicna.

Tails ran past him and sprinted towards the street, shouting "Come on! Let's go!"

_Incredible how much happier Tails is, now that it's day,_ Sonic thought. _Several hours ago, he was still whimpering in his cardboard box about having no blankets or food. Now it's like he's running around in the electronics section of the mall near our house all over again. It's great to have him be in a cheery mood again than have him moaning about stuff like he has for the past few days. _

"All right Tails!" Sonic yelled as he ran to keep up with the fox. "I'm right behind you!"

Tails couldn't believe it! He was in a place he had been dreaming about visiting, ever since his mom had started telling him about it when he was three years old.

"_It's like being in a giant candy store," she told me. "Every store is filled to the brim of things you'd never knew had been invented. They've got computers that you wear on yourself, toy robots that move so lifelike you'd think they were alive, and all sorts of other things. I'll definitely take you there one day, just so you can see it with your own eyes."_

While his mom Natalie had never gotten to bring him here, Tails was very happy that he had finally gotten his chance to see it. All of the shops were filled with sorts of interesting technology to look at. It ranged from the very useful (wearable computers, with hard drives the size of postage stamps that could hold terabytes worth of data), to the just plain strange (a cell phone that had a built in toothbrush and floss dispenser), to the really cool (toy cars with neural nets of their own, so they could think and navigate through any environment on their own without needing user input).

Tails must have spent at least an hour at the display in the local Elec World with the neural net toy cars. The display allowed a customer to set up a maze of walls for the car to navigate, so that they could watch the brain of the car do its stuff firsthand. Tails had created at least a dozen mazes for the cars to navigate, and he was having the time of his life. The fox was there so long and was having so much fun that he didn't hear footsteps coming up from behind.

"Uh...kid..." a nasally voice said.

Tails turned around and looked up into the face of a shop clerk. He was a teenaged armadillo wearing thick glasses, he had pimples all over his face, and the name tag pinned to his red uniform read _"Hi! I'm **Milton**! How may I help you?"_

"I'm really sorry about spoiling your fun," Milton said. "But my boss says that if you want to play any more, you have to buy one of the cars."

"How much do they cost?" Tails asked.

"Uh...I think these Teleno Neuro Cars cost about two hundred demens each."

"Two hundred demens! I don't even think Sonic has two demens!"

"Well, sorry, but my manager says that if you don't have any money, you have to leave the store. You better get out of here fast, before he sees you again."

Tails felt really sad, since he wouldn't get to play with the cars anymore.

"Okay...I'll go..." the fox mumbled, as he walked out through the door.

Sonic was waiting for him outside of the shop, leaning against a telephone pole. He stood up straight as Tails came out.

"Well, it's about time!" Sonic said. "You were in there for an hour and a half!"

"They said I couldn't play any more if I didn't pay."

"Good, because I think it's about time for us to get out of here. We should try to find something to eat before we leave the city though, because I don't know when we'll come to the next town. Come on. Let's go see if we can talk some people into giving us a little money."

The two walked off towards a nearby crowd, where Tails hoped they'd find some people who'd be nice enough to give them some spare change.

After about two hours of begging everyone they could find, Sonic and Tails sat down on a bench and spilled out all of the money they had managed to get. After counting it all, they came up with four demens and thirty-nine crents.

"That went terrible..." Sonic moaned, looking up from the money. "This isn't even enough money to get two meals at burger places, and they're the cheapest places I've seen here..."

"Maybe we could get one meal and share?"

Sonic was hoping Tails wouldn't make that suggestion. He absolutely hated burgers. However, Sonic's stomach was grumbling quite a bit, which changed his mind. Hunger was the best spice, after all.

"Okay...we'll do that." Sonic grumbled, as he stood up. "I don't like their food, but I don't really care since I'm so hungry anyway."

Sonic scooped up all of the money in his hands, and the two sat up and walked away.

_Just think... If it weren't for Robotnik, we would have never had to worry about food like we are now. We wouldn't have had to worry about anything. _


	3. Speak of the Devil

**Chapter 3: Speak of the Devil **

**March 12th, 2314 – 12:30 PM – Mor, Zeraw**

Milton returned to manning the cash register after he had sent the little fox kid away. The kid had two tails for some reason, which had totally wierded him out. Milton decided to be polite and not ask about why he had two of them though. His manager had told him that asking personal questions to customers tended to make them feel like their privacy was being invaded, and so they might not come back to the store again because of that.

Just seeing a strange mutant fox was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to him all day though. The rest of it had been pretty much routine. The only other customers to come in that day were an overworked mother cat and her two brat kittens. The boys touched everything they could lay their hands on, which Milton really didn't like. That tended to cause stuff to break, which he'd probably get blamed for since he was the only employee working here right now. Thankfully though, they had finally left after the mother had bought the cheapest RC car she could find for them, which cost ten demens. Thinking about RC cars got him thinking about that fancy new Teleno Neuro Car the fox boy had been playing with before.

_I wish more people would buy that thing... The problem is that they cost two hundred demens each, and they're classified as toys for kids. I don't know any kids who are even holding onto more than twenty demens at most, let alone two hundred. And plus, no parent is willing to pay that much to buy a toy for their kid, even for Christmas. So...sales for it were a flop this past holiday season._

Milton sighed as he looked at the tall stack of boxes holding Neuro Cars in the back of the store. Even though the pile had been there since last October, it had hardly shrunk at all. They'd only sold three of the things, even though the cars had been there through the holiday season of 2313. His boss Roger was considering marking them down since sales were so poor. Sure they'd lose the profits, but it was better than just having them stay stacked up back there.

Milton turned his attention back to one of those fancy thin plasma TVs that they had on display; they were the kind that hung on the wall. He was busy watching a JARA race that was taking place at the Mor International Speedway on the outskirts of town. The JARA (Jet-engine Aircraft Racing Association) tournament was more commonly known by its simpler moniker of the Speed Races. Why that was the nickname for it, Milton didn't know.

_Anyway, I really wish I had time to go over to the Speedway and watch the race, but this job is too important, even if it is dreadfully boring. At least they finally removed Oliver "Old Man" Owl from the tournament. That guy causes a wreck in nearly every race, and he was costing his own team and JARA millions. He's nearly taken out my favorite racer Brad Steeler a few times too, not to mention just about every other pilot out there at one point or another. How the hell was he able to stay a racer for so long, with all the mistakes he's made? Man, I wish my boss cut as much slack as his._

Milton watched as Brad's black and red jet came around the final turn. He blazed down the home stretch towards the finish line, in front of the grandstand. The racer in second place was more than thirty seconds behind, so Brad would easily win this one. Brad's vehicle flashed past the control tower at the finish line, as a race official standing at the top waved a checkered flag.

"Brad Steeler has done it again!" the announcer said over the TV. "This is the third race in a row he's won this season! He's well on his way to winning to yet another championship in his illustrious racing career! Is there anything that can stop this juggernaut?"

"Nope," Milton said, replying to the announcer's query. "Nothing can take him down. Even a hole in his ship couldn't do it."

"What is that?" the announcer said. The voice was barely audible, as if he had taken his headset off and laid it down on the counter. Milton could also hear murmuring voices in the background, like everyone in the room had just dropped what they were doing to talk about something.

The camera view on the TV suddenly moved to show a missile streaking towards the speedway. Milton was so surprised by this picture that he didn't know what to think. The armadillo watched on the TV as the missile suddenly made a sharp turn, streaking towards Brad Steeler's jet. Two seconds later, the missile punctured through the stabilizing fin sticking out of the back of the jet. While the missile didn't detonate, the fin was ripped clean off of the plane. Without anything to keep the jet stabilized, it went into a sickening barrel roll, and careened directly towards the outside of the first turn on the track. By some miracle, Brad managed to pull his jet up enough to avoid the outer wall of the arena. However, right after that the plane descended out of sight behind the barrier. A half second later a giant explosion erupted from where Brad had disappeared, and oily black smoke drifted up into the sky.

"Brad!" Milton screamed as he ran around from behind the counter. He stepped towards the TV, as if he thought he could do something to help by getting closer to the image on the screen.

"What caused that?" the armadillo said. "Who fired that missile?"

As if to answer his question, the camera rotated around to reveal a horde of flying battleships storming towards the raceway, firing laser blasts and missiles at everything in sight. Explosions in the stands sent people flying. A few more racing jets were shot down, and others crashed while trying to dodge the lasers and rockets. The raceway had erupted into total chaos. The racers who were still alive tried to fly away from the danger, while people ran and tripped over each other to get to the exits out of the speedway. He could also hear screaming inside the control tower, where the announcer had left his microphone running.

"Shit! Run! Run or you're gonna get fried!" someone yelled over the chaos.

The camera once again rotated, to show a missile streaking straight towards the announcer's box, which was the roof of the building that the camera was on. The missile hit the side of the building, sending up a massive fireball that engulfed the camera. Then there was static on the TV screen and Milton saw nothing more. He finally managed to find his voice after the shock.

"Wh-what the hell just happened?"

Milton just stood there for a few seconds, staring at the buzzing static on the TV set, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, he remembered that Mor International Speedway was on the south side of the city. Milton wanted to see if he could spot the ships approaching the city from here. He sprinted towards the double doors at the front of the shop and stepped out onto the street. The armadillo then noticed that people were pointing to the sky, and talking in nervous tones. A few cars had even stopped in the middle of the road, and the drivers were getting out looking up as well. Milton tilted his head up too to see what they were watching.

The battleships that the racetrack camera had shown before were already hovering over the city. Milton was paralyzed to the spot in terror, unable to move as the battleships silently passed overhead. Then, the ships rapidly descended towards the tops of the buildings. When one of them stopped descending directly overhead, doors opened in the side of the massive vehicle and robotic soldiers leaped out. With heavy clanks, they landed on the street and rose to their feet. After standing up, each one of them reached for a blaster rifle strapped across its back, and brought it into a firing position.

Screams erupted all around Milton as soldiers opened fire with red laser beams, and he saw people trying to run for their lives. An old turtle got shot and fell to the ground, his cane clattering across the ground near his feet. A dog mailman was hit and his mailbag spilled open, the letters flying out of the bag like confetti. Milton couldn't stand it anymore. Seeing those people just get gunned down so brutally had finally spurred him to action. He turned and ran back towards the glass doors of the electronics shop, where he had just been watching a race on TV only moments before his world had been turned to hell.

The armadillo didn't make it ten steps. He was gunned down just as swiftly as the old man and the mailman had been. Milton's knees gave way as the sidewalk in front of the doors rushed up to meet his head. The glasses on his face were smashed to pieces as they made contact with the cement, and the shards left many cuts on his face. He yelled out in pain, but his cries rapidly faded. It was like his whole body was going rigid. Milton wanted to rub his face with his hands to soothe the pain, but his arms wouldn't move. However, while the pain was exquisite, he didn't feel like he was dying.

_Stun guns...?_ Milton thought.

He then heard the clunk of metal feet approaching him, and slowly turned his head to face the robot soldier.

"Sector clear," the robot said in a monotone voice, apparently talking into a radio. "Take all captives to the Robotnik mother ship to be brought back to headquarters for roboticization."

_Roboticizers? Oh hell no!_

Milton had heard about the terrible devices via news programs during the Robotnik War six years ago. Some stations had run detailed spots, telling the public about how the awful devices worked. They transformed a living, breathing flesh and blood creature into a mindless robot drone, which could do nothing except follow orders from Robotnik without question. Milton believed that being a mindless robotic zombie would be a fate worse than death. This thought spurred him to get up and run away. Unfortunately, his arms and legs still weren't willing to cooperate with him. It was a massively painful effort to just move his limbs, let alone use them to stand up again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the robot soldier had noticed him struggling. The soldier strode right over to him, and stopped next to his prone body. Without even a pause as it reached him, the soldier whacked Milton on the side of the head with the butt of its laser rifle. There was a bright flash of light in the armadillo's eyes, and then darkness, nothing else after that. The last thing he noticed before going fully unconscious was that someone had grabbed his feet and was dragging him across the ground.

---

"Argh...this is taking forever," Sonic muttered.

"Do you need to say it again?" Tails asked.

He and Tails were standing in line at a Burger Stop restaurant. The place was crummy looking, what with the overflowing garbage cans, dirty floors, and filthy tables. At least the menu showed cheap prices for everything. The two of them didn't really have much of a choice on where to eat, since they were nearly broke. Unfortunately, there were a lot of other people around who wanted to save money too, and so they had to get in a long line.

With nothing better to do, Sonic looked to the left, towards the windows that looked out over the busy street bordering the restaurant. There wasn't much to see over there though. Sonic wished there was something more interesting to watch than just cars whooshing past and people walking on the sidewalks. He'd already seen plenty of that all morning. The streets were certainly more exciting than their old home in Forest Town, but it got dull to watch after seeing it for a while.

The blue hedgehog turned back to face the line, and saw that there were still at least twenty people in front of them in line. He groaned aloud. If there was one thing that really pissed Sonic off, it was being stuck in one place with nothing to do. He had to be free, he had to run, walk, anything besides sit still. Once again, Sonic turned to face the windows.

Gigantic robots with red eyes and laser guns were standing in the middle of the street. They were so unexpected that it actually took Sonic's brain a moment to register the fact that they were actually standing there. It was then that Sonic realized that the cars in the street had stopped, and people were screaming and running for their lives. People inside the restaurant started to run too. The robots opened fire on the fleeing people in the street, knocking them down with their shots. Once the street was clear, a few of them turned to face the Burger Stop's windows.

"Get down!" Sonic screamed, jumping on top of Tails.

The robots opened fire, their shots causing the windows to break and send shards of glass flying all over the tables, floors, and people. Several patrons were immediately hit and knocked down by the laser blasts. The rest panicked and tried to run, but with the tightly packed lines in front of the order counter, it wasn't easy to get out. Sonic and Tails stayed glued to the floor, as feet flashed past their bodies. One or two people even accidentally stepped on top of them.

While Sonic just groaned and sucked up the pain, he could hear Tails whimpering and crying. The tears pattered across the cheap white-tiled floor. The initial attack over, Sonic slowly raised his head to get a better look at the chaos. A lot of people were now lying down on the floor, due to getting hit by the lasers. Others were trying to find places to hide behind tables and the order counter, and more were trying to flee through the exit opposite of the one facing the street.

There was another sound of shattering glass, and Sonic turned around to see the source of the noise. The robots were entering the restaurant through the glass doors at the front. Instead of bothering to open the doors properly, they simply broke them down. Their footsteps were deafeningly loud and clunky, and even left small cracks in the tiles from the sheer weight of their bodies.

"All surrender to the Robotnik Empire..." one of the robots droned, pulling his laser rifle back up into a firing position.

_Robotnik? So he's the one who sent these robots? _Sonic actually smiled a little. _Now is my chance to take revenge for what he did to Tails' parents._

"Hey!" Sonic called out to the robots, as he stood up and moved away from Tails. He pointed at himself. "Take your best shot, right here!"

The robots fired at Sonic, but he easily sidestepped the shots as they destroyed the tile floor where he had been standing a second before. He then teleported behind the two soldiers, and sliced through them like a hot knife through butter using his spin attack. The disconnected torsos and chests clattered to the floor. Everyone who hadn't left the restaurant yet clapped and cheered for Sonic.

"Good job kid!" a fry cook behind the counter said. The cook, who was a rabbit, gave him a thumbs-up.

Sonic looked at the man, surprised. He had mostly cut down that robot just out of rage against Robotnik, and hadn't really thought about the fact that he was also helping out everyone in the restaurant. The feeling felt great though...

"Thanks!" Sonic said, flashing him a thumbs-up sign back.

Tails was still lying on the floor, but he looked up at Sonic and gave him a weak smile, and wiped the tears from his eyes. Sonic lowered his hand to Tails and helped him up.

"Are you all right?" Sonic said, as he pulled Tails up.

"I guess so..." Tails murmured. "That was scary. I hope there aren't more robots out there."

"Look!" someone in the restaurant shouted. He pointed to what was happening outside.

A unit of robot soldiers was marching in orderly rows down the street passing next to the restaurant. With how organized they were, they looked prepared to destroy the entire city. Sonic heard the sound of a jet engine, and it sounded oddly familiar for some reason. One moment later, he realized what he was listening to. As if on cue, Robotnik's personal egg ship appeared hovering above the lines of soldiers, and he looked out over all the chaos before him with glee.

It was almost just like what Tails had said his nightmare was like. Despite the severe damage that the battle with Kyle had caused back in Elona nine days ago, and the state of Kyle's corpse, Robotnik appeared to be completely uninjured, and his craft didn't even have a scratch in its paint. It was like Robotnik had never been a part of that fight. Sure he could have probably had a replacement ship handy, but how did he recover from his injuries so fast?

What few people were left in the restaurant turned to the exits on the other side of the building and fled for their lives. Sonic paid them no mind though. He also paid no attention to Tails tugging at his arm, as the fox screamed at him to run. All that mattered now was focusing on the mad doctor.

Sonic clenched his fist at the sight of Robotnik. He was so disgusted with how this madman had just killed his father, Tails' parents, and this city, and yet everything was still going his way. He deserved to be rotting in hell, not sitting in his ship all giddy with that stupid smile on his face. Sonic had had enough. If he wasn't in hell yet, Sonic felt that he had to send him there. He strode right over towards the glass doors that the soldiers had destroyed earlier, and began to step outside.

However, a small arm grabbed him from behind before he could fully get out of the restaurant. He turned around, and saw that Tails was there with his eyes wide open with fear.

"Let me go Tails," Sonic said, easily shaking out of Tails' weak grasp. "I'm going out there!"

"No Sonic! You'll die!" Tails said, grabbing on and trying to pull him back. "Robotnik has too many robots with him!"

"I took down the first two ones easy enough."

"But there's a lot more than two out there!"

"Enough!" Sonic shouted, shaking off Tails again. "I'm going to go kill Robotnik and you're not gonna stop me!"

Then one of the robots in the crowd turned towards them and started shooting...


	4. Family Legacy

**Chapter 4: Family Legacy**

**March 12th, 2314 – 1:00 PM – Mor, Zeraw**

As he commanded his soldiers in battle, Robotnik thought that Robotnik War II was off to a great start. Most everyone had thought that he had been dead ever since the end of Robotnik War I in 2308, when in reality he was only biding his time in the secrecy of his new headquarters, rebuilding the strength of his army with even more robots and war machines. The Freedomian Army had also gotten fat and lazy ever since their victory over him six years ago, with how they had let their equipment rust, their razor sharp combat reflexes dull, their minds soften towards getting back to civilian life. Because of that, cities in the Land of Darkness were falling to him left and right, with barely any resistance being offered. It was so easy that it was pathetic.

And despite how great everything was going for Robotnik, he still felt himself seething with rage over two people: Swift Hedgehog and Kyle Prower. They were the two soldiers most directly responsible for his defeat in Robotnik War I six years ago, and the two people he had wanted to see dead more than anything in the world. But, even though they were gone now, Robotnik frequently thought of them and how much trouble both of them had caused him while he was trying to take over Planet Freedom.

During Robotnik War I, if he saw them on the battlefield, that meant certain defeat for him. They were like demons in a war zone, cutting through anything he threw at them like a knife through butter. He had managed to kill Swift towards the end of the first war, but his headquarters had been captured shortly thereafter. Kyle was still alive as well, which had enraged Robotnik to no end in the six years since the last war had ended.

What made the experience worse was watching the survivor Kyle Prower and his family enjoy the peace. Not only had he had the nerve to raise both his own wretched son Tails and Swift's son Sonic (whom he adopted after his father died), his wife Natalie was working on a cure for his wonderful roboticization process. The nerve of that woman, trying to destroy the fruits of his labor by building a de-roboticizer! Robotnik made it a goal to personally kill Kyle Prower and his entire family right after he finished preparations for Robotnik War II.

However, the planned attack on Kyle's family several days ago went rather sour. While Natalie and Kyle had been killed in the attack, and the prototype de-roboticizer destroyed, Kyle had critically wounded Robotnik in a last ditch grenade attack before he died. That had caused him to have to stay in bed and recover, but fortunately medical technology had advanced to the point where he could be revived in days, in what used to take weeks or months. The doctors he had kidnapped from a Carlboron hospital had made sure he was healed promptly, out of fear of their lives.

Kyle's children were still alive out there somewhere...but Robotnik didn't really care anymore. Whether they lived or died wouldn't have any effect on Robotnik War II, and trying to find them would be like looking for a needle in a haystack anyway.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when he heard one of the soldiers beneath him start shooting.

"Cease fire!" Robotnik angrily screamed.

The offending robot quickly obeyed. Robotnik pulled out a laser pistol and blasted its head off with one shot. The robot's head bounced across the street, as its body toppled to the pavement, while none of the other robots so much as even flinched.

"Don't interrupt me while I'm thinking!" he snarled. He then turned to see what the soldier had been shooting at, and saw a fast food restaurant surrounded by a parking lot and a few abandoned cars. Two little kids were standing at the entrance of the building.

Robotnik was about to give the order to fire again, but then he took a closer look at the two children standing there. One was a blue hedgehog, and the other was an orange fox with two tails. They looked strangely familiar...and then it hit him about a half-second later. They were Sonic and Tails, and he had seen them back at the university lab. They were Kyle Prower's children. Robotnik got a sly grin on his face. The doctor had been so sure that he wouldn't find Kyle's kids, that it took a moment for him to realize that he _had _been lucky enough to actually find them.

_True, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things if they die or live, but I would like to tie up the loose end I left behind back at the university. _

He raised a hand to order his soldiers to halt, and they did so with standard robotic efficiency. Then he pointed his arm towards the restaurant, signaling them to face the building. While Sonic stood solid as a rock despite the maneuver, Tails' tails had puffed out to twice their original size, and he was shaking in fright. He cowered behind his adopted brother.

"Stand down men..." Robotnik said to his soldiers.

They complied, holding their rifles up in a relaxed position. The doctor cleared his throat, and then spoke as loudly as he could to the kids.

"Sonic and Tails!"

Tails was freaking out even more than he had been before. Now the fox's tails had puffed up to three times their regular size, and he looked like he was about to pass out right there. Sonic still remained standing adamant, as solidly as a rock. The hedgehog then pushed one foot in front of the other, and held out an arm. He was going into a fighting stance, as if he were ready to do battle with Robotnik.

_Arrogant and cocky, just like his father. I must teach him respect. _

"Look at you, Sonic," Robotnik said. "You think you can take me on? Remember that I have killed your father Swift, and Tails' parents Kyle and Natalie. I have conquered many cities already, and I only started my new war a few days ago. What makes you think that I won't trample you just as easily?"

"I can't just stand by and do nothing," Sonic said. "I don't care who you are. You can still die just as easy as anyone else. And I'm going to prove that to you!"

"Let's see if your adopted dad was right about you then," Robotnik said.

"Kyle, Tails' dad?"

"Yes, he told me: 'Remember how fast Swift and me were? Well, our kids are even faster than that, and they're only twelve and six right now. You should have killed them when you had the chance. Now they're gonna grow up and kill you instead.'"

Sonic smiled a bit, apparently happy that Kyle had confidence in him even while he was dying. Robotnik intended to squash that happiness flat right now though.

"I'm going to prove that stupid red fox wrong today," Robotnik said, pointing at Sonic and Tails. "It will be the perfect revenge on Kyle for that insult he gave me before he died. Children defeating me? Ridiculous!"

Sonic screamed in rage at the word "children", and charged towards Robotnik's egg ship across the short distance that separated them.

---

Sonic knew the odds were against him in this fight, with Robotnik having an entire unit of soldiers backing him up, but quite frankly he didn't give a damn. All that mattered to him was killing Robotnik, the man who had been responsible for ruining his and so many others' lives on Planet Freedom. With that burning anger coursing through his veins, everything else took a back seat, including rational thinking. However, that didn't mean he didn't have a plan.

Sonic leaped high into the air, and curled into a ball. He hurtled towards Robotnik's egg ship like a cannonball. At the point of contact, he was rewarded with a satisfying crunch of metal, glass, and plastic, and an angry roar from Dr. Robotnik as he was sent toppling backwards through the air. The ship was sent flying back several feet before the doctor could finally recover from the blow. Sonic landed on his feet after the attack and admired his handiwork. A dent the size of a cannonball was left where he had hit the ship. Sonic was amazed that his spines could do that much damage. Suddenly, the odds against him seemed much fairer.

"I see that you have some of your father Swift in you," Robotnik said, his face contorting into a wicked grin. "It doesn't matter though. You're still only a child."

_Only a child..._

Those words felt like a red hot poker through Sonic's chest. It angered Sonic how Robotnik still thought he wasn't worth fighting, just because he was young.

"Who cares if I'm a kid!" Sonic screamed. "I'm still going to kill you!"

"You aren't old enough to know true failure yet," Robotnik stated. "That's why you think you can beat me so easily, and that will be your downfall."

"Shut up about how old I am!" Sonic shouted, as he started to rush towards Robotnik's ship again.

He leaped straight at Robotnik's ship, and curled into a ball again as he prepared to make contact. Before he could reach Robotnik though, a white-hot pain struck him in the left leg. It was like someone sliced a knife across his skin. Sonic toppled out of his spin and crashed to the ground in a heap. He cried out in pain as he put his hand to the new wound in his leg. Sonic's face fell as he looked and saw a long burning gash on his lower leg. He could see a bright red slice under his blue fur. It was oozing only a little blood, but the pain felt severe.

"What did I just tell you?" Robotnik said, lowering his ship down to the ground to talk to Sonic. "Your overconfidence will be your downfall, and I was right. Do you really think you could beat me the same way your father beat me? I've learned from my mistakes since then."

"Shut up...you shit head..." Sonic muttered, his voice sounding weak.

"And out comes the verbal abuse..." Robotnik said with a grin. In a demeaning tone, he said, "People always use language like that when they know they can't win."

Sonic growled at Robotnik, and struggled to get up. It was incredibly painful with the burning gash on his leg, but the demons of rage within him gave him strength that he didn't know he had. A few drops of hot blood trickled down his leg and pattered across the pavement.

_I am_ not _going to let him get away with saying that to me! _

With a sudden heave of strength, Sonic got to his feet, and leaped directly at Robotnik. He curled into a ball, and smashed through the front windshield of the egg craft. He then felt something soft and pliable as he crossed over the cockpit, and realized that it was Robotnik's face. Something was dripping off of his spines, and it was blood. While Sonic normally didn't like the sight of blood at all, he grinned a little at realizing Robotnik had been wrong when he said that Sonic had nothing left in him. However, when he landed on the ground, his knees gave way underneath him and he hit his face on the ground, hard.

Sonic got up on one hand, and put the other hand to his face. He felt a throbbing pain as his fingers brushed across his cheek. It looked like hitting the ground had put some scrapes there. Once again, Sonic gritted his teeth as he rose up from the ground, trying to get back onto his feet again. When he had managed to stand up again, he turned to see that Robotnik had crashed his ship into the horde of soldiers he had with him. Sonic smiled through the pain.

However, the egg ship shuddered though, and rose up into the air once again. A couple of robot soldiers had gotten tangled in the under workings of the ship, and were being dragged up into the air as the little craft climbed. Robotnik looked out from his ship, and Sonic saw long gashes on his face where his spines had left their mark. The doctor turned to Sonic, and he looked absolutely furious.

"That's it you goddamn rodent! No more talking!" Robotnik screamed at him. "You and your fuzzy friend die now!"

Robotnik looked down at the remaining soldiers.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, he said, "All soldiers open fire!"

The parking lot of the restaurant was ablaze with laser fire. Amidst the laser blasts, Sonic noticed a large SUV had been parked just to the left of where he was standing. He dived behind it for cover. It would keep him safe for a few moments, but no longer. The shots shattered the windows, punctured the tires, and melted the metal panels as they made contact.

Sonic didn't know what to do. He couldn't run away even with his leg like this, and even if he could the field of laser fire was too intense. He glanced back towards the restaurant, and saw Tails down on his hands and knees behind the broken glass doors, watching Sonic with terror in his eyes. Sonic felt the same terror, because he would only need to get hit once and it would all be over. Not to mention, his cover was rapidly deteriorating. The car practically looked like a block of Swiss cheese now, and lasers were starting to puncture all the way through the car and out the other side.

Sonic took another look back at Tails. About ten yards of asphalt separated the two, but that asphalt was being chewed up by laser blasts. They were so near to each other, and yet so far away. Sonic was as good as dead, and he knew it. He couldn't get back to Tails through the laser fire, and Tails wouldn't be able to get to him and help. Sonic gave a final sigh, admitting defeat to himself. The hedgehog took one last glance at Tails. He wanted to yell at the fox to run, to save his own life and not sacrifice himself to try to save him. But, the firing from the soldiers was so intense and so loud that all words would probably be drowned out, so Sonic simply waved goodbye.

_Run Tails...just run and leave me to die. _


	5. Run!

**Chapter 5: Run!**

**March 12th, 2314 – 1:15 PM – Mor, Zeraw**

Tails couldn't believe it. Cocky, confident, surefire, and ready to go Sonic Hedgehog had just waved him goodbye, admitting that he was lost and that there was nothing that either of them could do to save him.

_Come on Sonic! That's not what you're like! You wouldn't just give up like that! _

Tails put his back against the wall next to the glass doors he had been watching Sonic through. He buried his face in his arms and knees, and started to cry.

_My big brother...he thinks he can't make it. What am I going to do? I can't go out there, or I'll get shot and I'll die! But I don't want Sonic to die either! What do I do? _

Tails gazed around the ransacked restaurant, trying to formulate a plan with his little six-year-old brain. The place was scattered with overturned tables, splattered ketchup and mustard packets, half-eaten food, and assorted other items, not to mention the bodies of those who didn't escape the first round of shooting a few minutes earlier. There was a lot of stuff lying around, but Tails didn't see how any of it could help him rescue Sonic.

"_You can invent anything, if you think hard enough." Mom told me that. But what can I invent with this stuff to help save Sonic? I just don't know... _

Then Tails saw it: the condiment bar. It was covered with dozens of packets full of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and all sorts of other things people liked to put on their food, plus napkins, straws, and plastic forks, knives, and spoons. That wasn't important though. The important thing was that Tails noticed it was made of heavy metal, and it had wheels on the bottom. An idea was starting to form in Tails' head. He would use the bar as a moving shield while he ran to grab Sonic. The fox jumped up from where he was sitting, and ran behind the condiment bar. Then he pushed against the thing as hard as he could, but it barely moved even though he was putting all of his strength into the task.

_I'll get shot if I can't keep this thing moving fast enough. What can I do to make it move faster?_

Tails glanced around the restaurant again, looking for something more that he could use. However, he came up empty. Tails looked down, saddened that his plan would work if only he wasn't so weak physically. He glanced down at his tails...and then another idea popped into his head...

Nine days ago...

_"Tails, are you ready to try it again?" Sonic said, standing next to an exhausted Miles 'Tails' Prower in the backyard of the Prower house._

_"Sonic...let me rest..." Tails gasped out._

_"No way! I wanna see you try to fly again!"_

_"Ugh..."_

_About a month and a half ago, Kyle had taken Sonic and Tails on a ride in a helicopter, as a present for Tails' sixth birthday. He'd been half regretting his dad giving him that gift ever since. That had given Sonic the idea of using Tails' twin appendages like the propellers of the helicopter to get him to fly. Well, to their surprise, their little experiment had actually worked. While it was cool that Tails could fly now with his tails, he didn't like at all how Sonic kept pestering him to show off his flying every ten seconds. He thought his tails were going to fall off at this rate._

_"Alright, I'll do it..." Tails muttered._

_"Alright!" Sonic said, jumping for joy. "Thanks Tails!"_

_Tails spun his tails around again, just like the rotor on a helicopter. The trimmed blades of grass beneath his feet fanned out from the downdraft as he slowly rose into the air. He rose up about two feet off of the grass, but then collapsed to the ground out of sheer exhaustion._

---

_If my tails can create enough of a force to lift me off of the ground, then maybe I can use that force to push this cart... Thank you Sonic! _

Tails twisted up his foxtails, and then spun them back out again as fast as he could, the force giving him a great thrust forward, as if a giant hand had just slammed him and the cart straight forward. The cart rocketed right through the broken glass doors and into the parking lot, with Tails holding onto the end of it. As the laser fire started to turn towards him, Tails let go of the cart and ran behind it. Luckily, the metal of the cart seeming to absorb the laser fire well enough. Sonic was rapidly getting closer now. As the condiment bar crashed into the rear fender of the SUV, Tails was already yanking Sonic up off of the ground by the hand. The hedgehog's leg was bleeding quite a bit, the red spattering on the ground at his feet.

"Tails...I told you to run!" Sonic shouted in terror over the thundering noise of the gunfire. But, then he put on a smile. "But anyway, thanks for coming to get me..."

"Save it for later Sonic!" Tails shouted back. "We need to get out of here!"

And then it hit him as he said those words. He hadn't really thought his plan all the way through. Sure he'd gotten to Sonic, but now what? How were they going to get back out? Tails couldn't push the cart _and _help Sonic out of the area at the same time. With that wound in his leg, he probably wouldn't be able to move too fast.

"_You can invent anything, if you think hard enough." _

The words of Tails' mother echoed in his head once again.

_I know Mom, but what do I do now? I can't think...there's too much noise with all the shooting. It's a big...what's that big word? A distraction, that's it. Mom always said "Don't be a distraction while I'm working. It confuses me." And... Why am I thinking about that now? Me and Sonic are about to die. Wait...distraction...confusing... I've got an idea now. _

Tails turned back to Sonic.

"Sonic...can you give that metal thing over there a push?" Tails said as he pointed at the condiment bar stuck in the back of the car they were hiding behind.

"Uh…sure I think..." Sonic said. "Why?"

"After you push it, grab onto my arms. They'll shoot at the cart, while I fly us out of here."

"Sounds like a plan to me Tails," Sonic said. "Let's do it. But make it quick. I'm losing a lot of blood."

Sonic walked over to the cart with a limp from his leg, trying to stop the bleeding but having no luck. He gave the cart a kick with his good leg, and it moved back across the parking lot. The laser fire immediately shifted away from the car and towards the condiment bar as it rolled away. Sonic came back over to Tails, and held out his arms.

Tails grabbed onto his arms as tightly as he could, and said, "Hold on tight."

Tails twin foxtails began whipping around, creating a downdraft that lifted the fox off of the ground, and then the hedgehog behind him. The two rose out from behind the car, and went up and away from the restaurant. The laser fire quickly came up to meet them, but they were gone before long. Tails could have sworn he heard Robotnik screaming in rage behind them, but he barely paid it any mind, too busy evading the shots.

"Looks like we made it," Sonic said, as they flew over the city. He then took a look around at the town below. "This is...terrible..."

Tails looked down too, and he saw it as well. It wasn't just the restaurant that had been attacked, but the entire city. Both of them had been so busy trying to escape Robotnik that they hadn't realized the magnitude of the army's forces. There were dozens of flying battleships hovering over the city, firing at random down at the city below. Entire skyscrapers had collapsed to the ground in smoking heaps. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of fires burning around them. Worse of all were the individual people they saw on the street below getting brutally mowed down by the gunfire. After Tails watched a crowd of children running out of a school get shot down by a troop of robotic soldiers, he couldn't bear to watch any longer. He turned his eyes back away from the ground.

"We have to get out of here!" Tails shouted over the noise. "We need to get back to the Tornado outside the city!"

"Too bad...I wanted to stay and try to stop Robotnik," Sonic said.

Tails looked down at Sonic in shock. The blood flow continued to trickle down out of the laser wound in his leg.

"You're kidding me, right? He shot you! You can't fight like that!"

Sonic frowned and shook his head.

"Don't care. I want to do something to stop him. I would hate to just let him get away with all of this..."

Sonic then turned away from Tails and looked in another direction. His eyes went wide with fear.

"Look out Tails!"

"What is it Sonic?"

"Over there!"

Tails turned to see what Sonic as looking at, and his mouth dropped. In front of them was one of the battle cruisers they had been watching before. Now they could see its main cannons turning to fire upon them. Tails went into a dive, down to the war-torn city below, just as the cannons sounded. He could feel the sizzling heat of the high wattage laser blasts traveling past them, but fortunately none hit. The cannons apparently weren't designed to shoot at such a small target. Meanwhile, Sonic and Tails dropped down in the middle of a street that was thankfully free of hostiles.

"We'll have to walk out of here," Sonic said, putting an arm over where he got shot. "If we try to fly out, those battleships might shoot us down."

Tails nodded, and then looked around at where they were. It looked a little familiar...

"Hey...haven't we been at this street before Sonic?"

"Maybe," Sonic said, looking around. He then pointed at something. "Yep, we've definitely been here before."

Sonic was pointing at an Elec World shop, the same shop that Tails had been playing with the Teleno Neuro Cars in. Tails briefly reflected on how different things had been around here only a few hours ago. He and Sonic had just been exploring the vibrant town, all of the streets full of people and cars going this way and that way. The streets had been relatively clean, and there was the dull roar of chitchat among people and cars going back and forth.

Now though, the once bustling city had been reduced to a war zone. Broken glass, trash, debris, and bloodstains littered the streets that had once been clean. Faint screams in the distance had replace the cheerful idle chat going on between people, and the thunder of laser rifles and battle cruisers now permeated the air instead of the rumble of trucks, buses, and cars. It was so terrible how Robotnik had transformed this city into a nightmare. Tails almost agreed with Sonic now on sticking around to fight Robotnik, but he wouldn't admit it out loud. He didn't want to encourage the hedgehog.

"Hey Tails, you awake?" Sonic said, shaking the fox's shoulder.

Tails didn't respond for a moment, but then his head suddenly jerked up. He had been thinking so much about going with Sonic's original plan that he had totally zoned out.

"Sorry."

"If we're at this shop, then that means the alley we were sleeping in before isn't too far away."

"Really? Then that means we're getting closer to the edge of town!"

"Yeah...we're almost home free. I just hope the Tornado is still there..."

As Sonic finished talking, there was the all-too-familiar sound of Robotnik's egg ship approaching in the distance. Sonic and Tails turned towards the direction of the sound, and saw Robotnik emerge from behind the buildings at the end of the street.

As soon as Robotnik saw them, he screamed, "They're here! Kill them!"

Right after Robotnik said the word 'kill', dozens of robot soldiers seemed to just appear from everywhere. Not only were they coming from Robotnik's end of the street, but they were also appearing from the other end as well. A battle cruiser in the sky above also drifted closer to their street. Sonic and Tails were boxed in from all sides.

"What do we do?" Tails shouted to Sonic.

"The Elec World shop! Let's try hiding in there!"

Tails decided to just go with Sonic's idea, since there wasn't any time to think of a better plan. The fox shouldered Sonic to help him move faster, and the two of them ran as quickly as they could inside the store. All of the TV screens on display were showing nothing but static. The shop clerk that had told Tails to leave the store earlier was nowhere to be seen. But, eerily, they saw a pair of broken glasses that looked like his in front of the entrance doors as they ran inside.

"They went inside the shop!" Robotnik bellowed from outside. "Go inside and hunt them down! Shoot anything that moves!"

"Crap..." Sonic muttered. He took in a deep breath, struggling to stay standing up. "They're going to come running in here any second now."

Tails was panicking. Sonic couldn't fight with his leg like that, and there was nobody else here. Meaning Tails was the one who would have to do the fighting once the soldiers ran in here. That meant they were dead. Tails was just a six-year-old fox, and he had never gotten into a fight with anyone at his elementary school. Heck, he hadn't even thrown a practice punch in his entire life. He wished that someone, _anyone _else was in here. Even that store clerk would do, despite the fact Tails thought he wouldn't be able to do much good in a situation like this. He briefly remembered how the clerk had forced him out of the store for playing with the Teleno Neuro Cars too much.

On the tail end of that thought, Tails glanced over towards the display where the cars were. Once again, he thought it was amazing how different things were the last time he was in this room, with how he had just been innocently playing with a bunch of toy cars there. Expensive toy cars, no less, which could navigate an area without any user input whatsoever, if the kid playing with them wanted them to…

Then, an idea hit Tails.

_We can use another distraction here, like at the restaurant. _

"Sonic!" Tails said. "Wait here a second!"

Tails leaned Sonic against a shelf, and ran over towards the display where the Neuro Cars were.

"What are you doing?" Sonic asked. "This is no time to play with toys!"

"Just trust me!" Tails said.

He reached inside the maze at the display and pulled out all the cars he could see. It was a bit tricky to catch them, since they were still up and running through the maze. The fox then sprinted over towards the glass doors, which the robot soldiers would be pouring through any second now. Tails put down three of the cars, and allowed them to zoom off out into the street. He then turned around and ran back to Sonic, taking his shoulder again.

"Let's get out of here!" Tails shouted. "We don't have much time!"

As Tails said that, he heard the sound of laser fire out in the street. The robots were trying to shoot the toy cars as they zipped about the debris, but they were having a lot of trouble trying to hit them with how small they were.

"_Shoot anything that moves!" Heh heh...it's working. _

While the robots were distracted by the toy cars, they would have time to run away. Sonic whistled a bit as he admired the young fox's idea.

"Great thinking Tails," Sonic said.

"Save it for later! Let's run!"

The two ran past the shelves of electronics, towards the door marked _'Employees Only'_ at the rear of the store. It wasn't locked, which was a major relief. There was no time to find the key for it. They came into a room full of shelves stacked full of boxes, with only a flickering fluorescent bulb overhead providing the lighting. Tails looked around the room, hoping that they could find another door to take. He saw two double doors over to the left marked _'Delivery Entrance – Keep Clear!' _Sonic and Tails looked at each other, and nodded. Tails opened the doors, and they began to step out into an alleyway. A hail of laser fire came from the left, tearing holes in the doors and the nearby walls. The two jumped back inside the building.

"They're out there too!" Sonic yelled.

"It's okay," Tails said.

Tails released the remaining three toy cars he had into the alleyway. The soldiers opened fire on the cars. The fox took a little peek into the passageway from the door, hoping he could find another way to get them out of here. He saw a doorway hanging open to the right, the door swinging back and forth in the wind. It looked like someone had been running out that door in such a hurry that he didn't have time to close it. Whoever had run out was probably dead by now, but it was a lucky break for Sonic and Tails.

Sonic saw the door too and said, "Ready when you are."

While supporting Sonic, Tails dashed across the alley as fast as he could. They dived inside through the door quickly. Tails looked up from where he had landed on the floor, and saw that they were inside another storeroom, meaning they were probably behind another shop again. No time to think about that now though. They had to escape before Robotnik managed to pin them down again. They crashed through the first door they saw in the room, hoping that this one would finally lead them to freedom.


	6. Clipped Wings

**Chapter 6: Clipped Wings**

**March 12th, 2314 – 2:15 PM – Outskirts of Mor, Zeraw**

Sonic guessed they had managed to escape Robotnik and his own private unit of soldiers, because after they had run through that second shop (which had been a clothing store) Robotnik's soldiers had stopped pursuing. The laser wound in his leg had been like fire at first, but now the pain was dulling since he was starting to get used to it. Still, he was in no shape to fight Robotnik with his bad leg. It would be a stupid idea to go back and try to take his revenge now. He'd changed his mind about wanting to fight at this time.

_Live today...fight tomorrow..._ _I'll get another shot at him later. I'll just have to wait. Next time though, I will be ready, and I won't be so careless. Robotnik, don't you worry...I will be back for you. _

Gradually, the tall skyscrapers gave way to quaint country houses, and the city streets choked with debris and buildings gave way to quiet back roads lined by fields of grass and trees. None of Robotnik's forces seemed to have bothered to come out this far, so it was a definite improvement over the city.

However, it wasn't all great to be leaving Mor. Since this was the Land of Darkness, it was dark here all the time. Thus, the further they moved away from the lights of the city, the darker it got. It felt like it was midnight, when in reality it was only two hours past noon. Sonic could almost imagine the red eyes of Robotnik's soldiers watching him from the shadows, even though it had been a while since the last time they had seen one of them. Also, even without soldiers, every step was a tremendous effort on Sonic's part with his laser injury.

At long last, the field where they had left the Tornado emerged into view as they rounded a bend in the road. Sonic prayed that nothing had happened to the Tornado, and that it was still there. If it wasn't, they'd have to walk from here on out, and that was gonna be a real pain in the ass with his busted up leg. As they stepped off of the pavement and onto the grass, Sonic felt himself sweating more, afraid that when they got to where they had left the Tornado hidden in the trees, it wouldn't be there anymore, or it would have been blown into a smoking crater or something. Neither of those outcomes would be much of a surprise, with their recent string of luck.

Thankfully, the Tornado was pretty much exactly how they had left it, in good condition. While Sonic rested on a rock and held a hand to the bandage over his injury, Tails stripped all the branches off of the plane as fast as he could. Neither of them said a word. Sonic noticed this, and he decided to break the silence.

"Tails?" Sonic said.

"What is it Sonic?" Tails said as he worked.

"I'm impressed with you."

Tails turned around to face him, with a surprised look on his face.

"Why?"

"Remember a few days ago, when we were fighting off the gunmen who were trying to kill Carrie?"

"Yeah...they were scary."

"Not really, but I noticed you never helped me take them down. You just kind of hid in the back before."

"I didn't want to die. I'm too scared of fighting and getting hurt to save people. I wanted to hide."

"But you did save my life today. I could have never gotten away from Robotnik without your help. You said that Robotnik was the scariest person ever, and yet you still came out to save me."

"I didn't want to die, but I didn't want you to die either. I was more scared of you being dead than Robotnik."

"You know, I don't think you're as much of a 'fraidy cat as you think you are. You could be a great hero one day, helping to save people's lives."

Tails gasped and shook his head.

"No way... I was scared to death the whole time I was saving you. I don't want to do it again."

"I still think I see a hero in you. Maybe the next time both of us could fight Robotnik together. What do you say?"

"No thanks!" Tails said, shaking his head. He pointed at where Sonic got shot in the leg. "Besides, we need to find you a doctor first!"

Sonic looked down at his leg and nodded, as Tails returned to his work of cleaning the branches off of the Tornado. Tails had taken a T-shirt off of the racks back in that clothing store they ran through and rigged it up as a makeshift bandage, but it wasn't a permanent solution to his injury. Neither of them had any idea how far the next city was, so for all they knew the next available hospital could be hundreds of miles away, and that could be very bad for Sonic. He didn't want to be walking on this leg any more than necessary.

Finally, Tails finished his work, and started the engine. The welcome hum of the propeller sounded throughout the area, filling Sonic with a feeling of relief. Tails guided the plane out of the trees, and aimed it towards the field. He then leaped out as the motor continued to run.

"Sonic, do you want to ride in the cockpit with me?" Tails said. He pointed at Sonic's leg. "I don't think you should ride on the wing like you usually do with that laser wound."

"But the Tornado is a single seater," Sonic said. "How are both of us going to fit inside the cockpit?"

"It will be a tight squeeze, but I think both of us can fit. You can sit behind me, and I'll be in front."

"But won't that put a lot of pressure on where I got shot?"

"I'll lean forward so that my leg doesn't press against your leg."

"Well, okay... Just help me get inside."

Once again, Tails used his tails to fly Sonic up into the air, and gently let him down into the cockpit's chair. Then, Tails eased into the cockpit. His big fluffy tails got up in Sonic's face for a moment, but thankfully the fox pushed them aside so that they curled around his body and dropped to the floor in front of the seat. Tails leaned forward, being careful not to fall back onto Sonic, and started the engine again. He started to guide the plane into the clearing for takeoff.

The vulpine then glanced over all of the meters quickly, and let out a soft moan.

"What's wrong Tails?" Sonic asked.

"There's a blip on the radar here," Tails said. "Something's coming closer, and I bet its one of Robotnik's ships."

On the end of that sentence, Sonic realized he could hear the noise of a jet fighter approaching from the direction of the city. Both of them looked up, and they could see a sleek black fighter swoop overhead. Robotnik's emblem, colored in red, was emblazoned across the side. After it passed over, it began to loop back towards their plane.

"Oh no!" Tails shouted. "He's seen us! We gotta get out of here!"

After he said that, there was the thundering noise of a rapid-fire laser gun overhead. Red lasers blew apart clumps of the ground all around the Tornado, but thankfully none hit. The jet swooped over again, but it would be turning around to come back very soon.

"Get us outta here now Tails!" Sonic yelled. "We're sitting ducks on the ground!"

"I'm trying!" Tails shouted back.

Tails gunned the engine, and the Tornado rolled forward. While the field was rough and the Tornado bounced up and down on its wheels as it rolled forward, it finally managed to get enough speed to go up into the air. Once they were at a good cruising altitude, Tails quickly turned the plane down low to the ground.

"That jet fighter is a lot faster than our plane," Tails explained. "If we go up into the air, it will hit us easy."

"Then what are you gonna do?" Sonic asked.

"We can fly low and hope it crashes into something."

"That sounds dangerous!"

"I know, but it's just about the only thing we can do, since this plane is slow and doesn't have any weapons."

As the jet fighter swooped up behind them and opened fire, Tails brought the plane down even closer to the forest flashing past below. To Sonic, it looked like they were flying so low that if he could reach through the bottom of the plane, he could touch the tops of the trees. Between the gunfire and the low-altitude flight, Sonic was on edge. One of the laser shots actually struck the rear of the plane, causing it to shake violently. However, it didn't appear to cause any difference in the performance of the plane, so he wasn't worried about it much.

Up ahead, there was a small valley, and Tails dived into it. Sonic looked behind them and saw that the jet was still right on them. As he looked back up ahead though, he noticed there was a concrete bridge spanning the valley. Sonic thought he understood what Tails was about to do.

"You're not gonna—" Sonic started.

"I am Sonic," Tails interrupted. "It's the only way to get rid of him."

As the bridge approached, Tails rose up into the air towards the bottom of the structure. He flew under it so closely that one corner of the bi-plane's top wing actually grazed the support underneath the bridge. That was nothing next to the loud explosion behind them though, as the enemy jet crashed into the bridge while trying to imitate Tails' maneuver.

Sonic briefly wondered how Tails did that. He seemed to have excellent piloting skills, even in this dark area. Tails had often displayed that skill for him when he was landing the plane in remote areas, like in deserted forest meadows in poor conditions, but that trick he did just now made the landings look like nothing.

_Maybe he gets it from his dad. Kyle was a really good pilot before he died, with how he flew those jets...  
_

"Yahoo!" Sonic hollered. "Great job Tails! You got rid of him, and you didn't even have any weapons on the plane!"

"Yeah... But there's another problem," Tails said with a sigh.

The moment of cheerfulness blown, Sonic fearfully asked, "What's wrong?"

"I think that shot that hit the plane hit the gas tank," he said. "We're losing fuel, and fast."

He pointed to the fuel gauge on the controls, and the needle was rapidly moving towards the "E" letter for Empty.

"Crap! That's not good!"

"I'm sorry Sonic, but we can't fly the plane like this. We were already running out of fuel before, and this is going to make it even worse."

"Sure, I understand," Sonic said with a sigh.

"Sorry about this, but we're going to have to walk from now on."

"No need to apologize Tails. I know there's nothing you can do to change this."

Sonic tried to say it as calmly as he could, but underneath he was panicking. Who knew how far they'd have to go to get to the next open hospital?

For the second time in less than a day, Tails brought the Tornado in for a landing in the clearing below. He easily landed it, and pulled the Tornado back into the same place they'd hidden it before. After the plane was safely tucked away, Tails turned off the engine. The silence after the engine was cut seemed terribly ominous, as if this engine would never be started up again. It was a likely prospect, come to think of it.

After Tails helped Sonic out of the plane, he asked "What should we do now?"

"We just gotta keep going," Sonic said. "There's nothing out here, and Robotnik's army is probably gonna run through here later anyway."

"But we don't have the Tornado anymore... We might not make it to the next city like this."

"Tails, we will make it, because we have to," Sonic said, determination in his voice. "There's just no other choice."

He then smiled at Tails.

"You're way too negative, you know that? It's not over until we're dead on the ground. Don't forget that. I'm gonna keep going as long as I can Tails, with or without you. But without you it will be harder."

"But aren't you worried about not making it?"

"Tails, I can't believe you," Sonic said with an angry huff.

"What?" Tails said, surprised at the sudden outburst.

"You did all of that stuff in the city to save me, and you did that trick with the plane too. Now you just want to quit?" the hedgehog said, crossing his arms. "That doesn't make any sense. We've come this far, so we might as well go all the way."

"I guess you're right Sonic," Tails said. He put on a smile.

"All right, that's better." Sonic grinned again. "That's the face I'd like to see."

Sonic then turned back to the Tornado, and his smile faded. Tails looked with him.

"Sorry old friend, but this is where we have to say goodbye," Sonic said to the Tornado. He looked at the hole in it towards the rear, where the fuel was spilling out on the ground. "You've been good to us, but with that hole in your tank you won't be able to help much now."

"But...Sonic," Tails mumbled. "It's just a plane. It can't understand you. Plus Robotnik's army might be coming!"

"I don't care Tails," Sonic said back. "This plane has been as much of a friend to me as you have. I think it deserves something before we have to leave it behind."

"Sorry, you're right," Tails said. "Keep talking."

Sonic nodded, and then turned back to the Tornado. He continued to speak to it as if it were a living person.

"We're both really going to miss you, with how you've flown us around all this time. Don't worry though, because we will be back. I promise. We'll bring back the best premium fuel you've ever had, and we'll give you a full tune-up too. You deserve one."

While Tails still understood that the Tornado was a lifeless machine, he couldn't help but feel a little saddened by how they were just leaving it behind like this. It really did feel like they were abandoning a friend. Sonic heaved out a great sigh, and then he continued again.

"But I'm sorry. For now, we have to say goodbye. It's only for a little while, but it still has to happen. So, Tornado, see you later."

Sonic waved his hand goodbye as he said that, and then he started to limp back towards the road. Tails started to follow after Sonic, but then he paused and waved goodbye to the Tornado too. He dashed to catch up with Sonic, amazed how fast he moved with that leg. As he stepped onto the pavement, Sonic turned around to wait for Tails. However, he saw him look down at the ground next to the road. The hedgehog picked up a sturdy-looking fallen branch from the ground, which was about to the height of his lower torso. He held it with one hand, one end of it resting on the ground. He tapped the end of it on the tarmac a few times.

"This'll do," Sonic said. He turned to face Tails again. "I don't think you'll have to carry me anymore Tails. I can use this for a cane."

"That's good."

"So, are you ready to walk? We've gotta get out of here fast before another jet comes."

Tails let out a sigh. He didn't feel up to the task of walking. Regardless, he didn't want to slow Sonic down.

"Yeah...let's go," Tails mumbled.

They started down the road they had been flying over before. It was amazing how much more vulnerable and weak Tails felt without that plane. Like any other part of the Land of Darkness, the entire area was dark, even though it was only early afternoon. It felt like the two of them were completely alone. And yet, Tails didn't feel they were alone. Dark trees surrounded the road, making it difficult to see anything hiding among them. With Robotnik close by, for all they knew they could be being watched by his army right now. Also, the only sounds were the noise of their footsteps, and the tap of Sonic's walking stick on the ground. Since the silence was so uncomforting, Tails decided to start up a conversation.

"How's your leg doing, Sonic?" Tails asked.

"It's all right," Sonic said. "I think I'm actually getting used to the pain."

"Do you think you'll be able to make it to the next town?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about me. After meeting Robotnik in the city, this isn't anything."

"Robotnik..." Tails said. Then something hit him. "Hey...that reminds me."

"What is it?"

"I didn't think you curling into a ball and smashing into him would work. I figured his ship would be too hard for that."

"Well, it worked for my dad."

"You mean your real dad Swift? Not my dad Kyle?"

"Yeah. He said that's how he beat Robotnik the first time he met him. He curled into a ball and smashed into his ship over and over again till it crashed. I've always wanted to try that out on Robotnik ever since Dad told me about that. Too bad that Robotnik got smart and stopped me. I could have stopped the war right there if I could have stopped him..."

Sonic let out a deep sigh out of regret.

"Yeah...it stinks..." Tails said.

"What really stinks is not being able to run," Sonic said. He growled in frustration as he looked down at the bandage on his leg, and his walking stick.

Then he glanced down the road. Tails looked with him. It ran on for quite some distance ahead of them, and it was so long that they couldn't see the end of it.

"If only I could run, we would be burning down this road at the speed of sound," Sonic muttered. The volume of his voice then rose to a scream. "Damn I hate walking!"


	7. No Rest for the Weary

**Chapter 7: No Rest for the Weary**

**March 15th, 2314 – 8:00 PM – Zerawian Countryside **

Three days of walking later, there was still no city in sight. Sonic briefly wondered how far they had traveled. It had felt like they had walked a thousand miles with his leg, but thankfully Tails had been nice enough to fly him through the air a few times. It gave him a chance to let his legs rest, and it allowed the two of them to travel much faster. However, it also wore Tails out and now he was unable to fly him around anymore.

One good thing had happened though. Yesterday, the road they were on had crossed over a river on a bridge. They ran down to the muddy banks and drank deeply from the water, not caring about getting filthy and wet. The water was very good; it had been quite a while since the last time they had seen a river or a stream. Even if it was unfiltered river water, it was probably the best-tasting water Sonic had drunk in his entire life. The two of them were in high spirits for quite a while after that.

Unfortunately, there was still the problem of food. Even before Mor, the only thing they'd been eating for days was berries they'd managed to collect from bushes they saw here and there, and that did virtually nothing to tame their appetites. Sonic figured he'd collapse in a bit if he didn't get some real food soon. Sure they had managed to get money while they were in the city, but what good was it when there was nowhere to buy food with it? The road they were on was completely deserted, with nothing around it but an endless forest. No gas stations, no houses, no grocery stores, nothing.

But then, as Sonic and Tails rounded a bend full of trees, a structure rose into view over them. It was a green and blue sign on a tall pole that had _"Taxago"_ written on it.

"Hey Tails...look!" Sonic said, pointing at the sign.

"Yeah!" Tails said enthusiastically. "Let's go!"

The two of them ran on down the road, and a large gas station appeared in the sea of trees on the left side of the road. The canopy and the building were colored blue and green, like the sign, and _"Taxago"_ was also written on both of them. It was one of those massive stations that had a fast food restaurant built into it, and in this case it was a Burger Stop. The restaurant's trademark logo of a stop sign with a burger on it was on the side of the station building, and it had never looked better to Sonic. The cartoon burger on the logo nearly looked good enough to eat.

The station itself appeared to be deserted. There were no cars or people in sight. The place felt completely empty. However, when Sonic looked close enough, he could see that a few of the lights were on inside of the building...

"You see the lights?" Sonic said, his voice light with happiness.

"Yeah!" Tails said. "Maybe there's someone inside who can help us!"

It wasn't a hospital, but Sonic was going to take what he could get. With a sudden vigor that hadn't graced the two for days, they dashed towards the station as fast as they could, and hit the door on the front of the building. It was locked.

"Hey! Is anyone in there?" Sonic shouted. "Let us in!"

"Please help us!" Tails yelled, joining in. "We need food!"

Then the door began to swing open to the outside. Sonic started to walk in, when suddenly a dark silhouette jumped into the doorway and pointed a long black tube at him. Then there was a click. A split second later, Sonic realized he was looking down the barrel of a gun. He stumbled backwards, landing hard on his back on the concrete just outside of the entrance. Sonic looked up again and saw that the barrel was still pointed at him, so he crawled backwards along the pavement until his back collided with a gas pump, and he sat there breathing hard, looking at his aggressor.

Now that the initial shock was over, Sonic could get a better look at the gunman. He was a wolf with dark red fur, a lighter red on his muzzle. It looked like he hadn't bathed for days, because his fur was unkempt and dirty, plus his green jacket and blue jeans were covered with dirt, mud, and even some dried blood. Maybe he was hurt? Whatever his condition was, he was breathing heavily and he seemed on edge, ready to pull the trigger of his gun. Sonic now saw it was a large shotgun with a wooden pump and stock.

The hedgehog noticed some movement off to the side, and saw that Tails had hid behind the open door when it had opened up. He looked like he was about to die of fright right there, with his tails fluffed out to three times their normal size. The wolf leveled his shotgun at the fox for a moment, and then he turned it back to Sonic.

"Who are you?" the wolf said to Sonic in a menacing voice. "What do you want?"

Sonic remained speechless, frozen in terror by this wolf with a gun in his face.

"Tell me now!" he screamed.

_So much for getting help... _Sonic thought as he began to speak.

"Sonic..." Sonic stammered. He pointed at Tails. "His name is Tails. And we just want food. That's all."

The wolf's heavy breathing continued to permeate the air. Then he blinked a few times, and as if awakening from a trance he moved the gun away from Sonic and held it at his side.

"Sorry about that," he said, his voice changing to a more relaxed tone. "I'm...kind of on edge because of what's been going on out here. You're the first people I've seen for a while, instead of those robots."

"Really?" Tails said.

"Yeah," the wolf said. "Anyway, since you told me your names, I'll tell you mine. My name is Tex Randalph."

"Okay Tex..." Sonic said. He looked again at the dried blood on his clothes. "Are you hurt? You've got blood on you."

"I...I'm fine." Tex said, his voice shaken. "Really, don't worry about me. I just twisted my ankle trying to get myself away from the robots a few hours ago. It'll be okay in a while."

Tex didn't say anything else after a while, so Sonic decided to ask another question to maintain conversation.

"Well...what are you doing out here all by yourself? Why don't you leave this place?"

"'Cause this place is out in the middle of nowhere," he said, sitting down on a bench next to the door. He laid the shotgun across his lap. "I don't think Robotnik would bother attacking some place as unimportant as this one. Some robots and battleships go by every now and then, but they don't even give a passing glance to this place. Not to mention, this gas station isn't a bad shelter."

He then pointed his thumb at himself.

"Besides, I'm the owner of this place, and I'm not gonna let some egg-belly take it away from me. It might be just a gas station to you, but to me it's our...I mean my life."

"Do you think you have much of a life left here though?" Sonic asked, sitting down on the bench next to him. "Robotnik's taken over the whole country, it looks like. If I were you I'd just run away."

"Well, I do have another reason for staying here," he said. He turned his eyes to look at the Burger Stop sign on the side of the building. "I've got a lot of food in there, thanks to the Burger Stop connected to this place. There's also the junk food and the drinks in the shop area. I could hold out for a while here, and wait for the cavalry to show up."

"Would you mind sharing some of that food with us?" Sonic said. "Cause we haven't had a single thing to eat all day."

Tex suddenly cast a dark look at Sonic. The hedgehog wondered if he had said something wrong. Tex then shook his head, and quickly replaced the dark look though with a smile.

"Well, I'll give you some, if you've got the money."

He stood up and walked inside. Sonic felt a bit hesitant, because of that look Tex had given him, but he moved to follow him in. Meanwhile Tails pulled out the money they had collected in Mor, all four demens and thirty-nine crents of it. It wasn't much, but it would probably be enough to get them a burger, fries, and a drink. They'd have to share the meal, but Sonic didn't mind. He'd take anything with how much he was starving. It seemed that their money might actually get them something after all. Sonic did wonder though why Tex was still charging them money, with the situation they were in.

The inside of the gas station was dark, and it only had a few lights on. A TV also hung on the wall in one corner, but it was currently turned off. Tex probably wanted to conserve power and not attract attention from Robotnik's forces. Apart from that though, nothing in the station seemed amiss. All of the shelves and cabinets were still nice and orderly, waiting for customers that would probably never come. That didn't weigh down on Sonic though. Just looking at the shelves of candy bars, canned foods, potato chips, and drinks made his mouth water. He thought he was going to start slobbering all over the floor any moment, but he didn't really care.

Tex walked behind the counter and said, "Well, get what you want and bring it here."

"Could we get something from the Burger Stop?" Sonic asked.

"Sure," Tex said.

He walked out from behind the counter, and into the restaurant area of the station through a nearby doorway. The Burger Stop looked about like what the last one they had been in looked like. Plastic silverware was scattered around, as were napkins and condiment packets. It wasn't clean, but it was hardly a disaster area though.

"What do you want?" he asked as he walked behind the restaurant's counter. He laid the shotgun down next to a cash register, and leaned against the counter with both arms.

Sonic glanced around at the menu above his head, looking for something cheap. He glanced at the value deals, and saw the Number One Burger Deal included a regular burger, regular fries, and a regular soda for three demens and twenty-five crents.

"Uhm...how about a Number One Burger Deal?"

"All right," Tex said. "That will be _thirty-two_ demens and_ fifty _crents."

Sonic looked at Tex, and then his eyes widened a bit. Had he really said that he wanted that much money?

"Could...could you say that again?" he asked.

"Thirty-two demens and fifty crents." Tex stated this clearly and firmly. There wasn't any question this time as to whether or not Sonic had heard him wrong.

"But the price on the menu says it's just three demens and twenty-five crents," Tails said.

"I know that you stupid fox," Tex said, leaving his mouth open slightly to reveal his sharp teeth. "This food is valuable now, since we're in the middle of a war zone and food is scarce. I can't just give it up to you, or I'll starve. So, I'm bumping the price up that high, because that's how much it's worth to me now."

"But you've got an entire restaurant's worth of food, and a gas station's too," Sonic said.

"I don't care," Tex said, swiping the shotgun back up off of the counter. He walked around from behind the counter, towards Tails. "If you want this food, pay up. Otherwise, get out of here."

"This isn't fair," Sonic said.

"Life ain't fair son," the wolf said, turning to face him. "Don't like it? Too bad."

"But we need food!" Tails shouted. "And all we've got is like four and a half demens!"

"Is that it?" Tex started laughing. After he was finished laughing, he said, "I won't even sell you a pack of gum for that much! This food is mine! And I can do with it as I goddamn please."

Sonic couldn't believe it. Tex had all of this food in this station, with no chance of him running out for at least a few weeks. And yet he was still hoarding all of it to himself, like a king with his gold. Sonic was thoroughly disgusted by his wild show of selfishness.

"I hope you burn in hell for this, you greedy old bastard," Sonic said to Tex.

Tex whirled around and pointed his shotgun at Sonic.

"Say that again blue boy and I'll send you there myself. 'Sides, even if I gave you the food, you'd probably die later anyway with what it's like out there, and then it would be a waste. Everyone's gonna die sooner or later. Just like Mary did..."

Sonic caught a hint of sadness on that "Mary" sentence. However, before he could ask who Mary was, Tex started talking again, his angry tone back again.

"Like I said before, you can either pay up or get the hell out of my gas station. Take your pick!"

Sonic glanced over to Tails. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. And then he looked back at Tex, with that shotgun pointed at Sonic's face and his eyes glinting with cruelty. Sonic wanted to do something to stop him, but with his bad leg Tex would probably be able to shoot him before he could spin-dash into him or something. Sonic decided it wasn't worth the gamble.

"All right," Sonic said with a sigh, feeling defeated. "We'll go,"

"But Sonic--!" Tails started.

"No Tails," Sonic interrupted, holding up a hand to silence him. "We need food, but it's no good if we die over it."

Tex growled a little as he heard Sonic's words. He tightened his grip around the shotgun, and his finger moved closer to the trigger.

"If that be your choice, then get out of here now. You've got 'til the count of three to walk out that door before I splatter your brains across the walls."

Sonic's eyes widened. With how on edge Tex had been the whole time they were here, Sonic had absolutely no doubt that Tex meant what he said.

"One," Tex said.

Sonic started to hobble towards the door as fast as he could. Tails ran after him.

"Two."

Tails pushed the door open, stepping aside to allow Sonic to walk out first.

"Three!" Tex roared.

There was a loud boom, and a glass window shattered next to the door, spraying shards all over the place. The two scrambled underneath the gas station canopy and dashed back towards the road, nearly tripping over each other a few times. They never looked back as they ran off, in their hurry to get away from Tex.

Sonic replayed the whole incident with Tex in his head, over and over again as he ran. He got angrier and angrier at Tex every time he thought about it. All that food... They were so close to eating it...and then it was snatched away from them just as quickly as it had appeared. Sonic wished he could kill Tex, he really did, but in his current condition he couldn't do anything except hobble away from that wolf. Then Sonic started to get angry at himself for being stupid enough to try to attack Robotnik and then get shot in the leg. If he hadn't gotten shot, they'd probably be enjoying a fine meal right now.

_Is this bad leg ever going to go away? I want to be able to walk without my walking stick so bad... I can't do crap like this! _

"I hope Robotnik kills both of you, you stinkin' kids!" Tex yelled at them as they sprinted off into the darkness. "Don't ever come back here ever again! You hear me!"

Sonic glanced over his shoulder to look at Tex. The wolf fired another shot, this time into the air. The boom from his shotgun seemed to shake the very earth beneath their feet, urging them to run even faster. The hedgehog vowed to himself that one day, he would never run away from danger like this ever again.


	8. New Hope

**Chapter 8: New Hope**

**March 15th, 2314 – 10:00 PM – Zerawian Countryside **

Another two hours later, Sonic and Tails were still wandering down the road with empty stomachs. Sonic wondered just how far they had walked. It was difficult to tell, with how much these roadways all looked the same. Outside of the cities, Zeraw seemed to be nothing but trees and grass fields, with an overcast sky constantly overhead. They couldn't even tell how much time had passed, since the sun hardly ever shined in the Land of Darkness.

"Sonic...are you all right?" Tails asked, suddenly breaking the silence.

"Not really. This leg...it's taking a lot of energy out of me just to walk on it," he said as he looked at Tails. Tails had a look of concern on his face, with his eyes wide open. Sonic let out a sigh. "Maybe if we rest a while, I'll feel better."

"Okay Sonic," Tails said. "Want me to help you off the road?"

"Nah, I'm okay."

"But what if a car comes by and runs you over?"

Sonic would have burst out into laughter if he had the strength. The best he could manage was some weak chuckles.

"It's been days since the last time we saw a car," Sonic said with a smile. "What makes you think one is just going to come out of nowhere and run me over here?"

Tails smiled back at him, apparently happy that Sonic wasn't totally devoid of laughter despite the situation.

"Sorry...I guess you're right," Tails said, sweeping the three hairs sticking out of his forehead away from his face.

"Well, if you're worried, help me into the grass then."

"Fine."

Tails helped drag Sonic off of the pavement and onto the grass beside the road. He helped Sonic to get comfortable on a soft cloverleaf patch.

"I'll wake you up later."

"Yeah...sure," Sonic said as he looked straight up at the dark, overcast sky ahead. As always, it was impossible to tell what time it was from looking at the sky, since the sky in the Land of Darkness always looked like that. "Good night, or good morning, or whatever time of day it is."

"Have a good rest," Tails said, walking out of sight.

Sonic let his eyes settle closed. For a few minutes, Sonic rested easily, but there was an annoying blinking sensation in his eyes. It was like there was a light or something flashing in them. The hedgehog wondered what it was. He ignored it for a little while, but it was getting more and more agitating by the minute. Finally, he decided to fling his eyes open and see if the flickering light still persisted in his vision. As he opened his eyes and his vision came into focus, he didn't see the light anymore in his eyes. The only thing that greeted his eyes was the road, and the trees and grass lining the road.

Then he saw it. In the trees on the right side of the road, he could see two yellow lights, blinking on and off about once every second. Sonic stared at them for a while to let his vision come into focus. He wanted to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Still, even as his vision came into crystal clear focus, the flickering yellow lights were there. That must have been what he was seeing in his eyes when he closed them. He got up on his knees, his exhaustion and yearning for sleep temporarily forgotten, as his curiosity fixated on the lights.

"Hey Tails..." Sonic murmured.

There was a stirring in the grass next to him.

Tails yawned, and then said, "What is it?"

"Look over there," Sonic said, pointing towards the lights.

Tails' eyes widened a bit.

"What is that? I hope it's not one of Robotnik's robots or something."

"There's only one way to find out."

"But aren't you still tired Sonic?"

"Yeah, but I won't be able to sleep until I know what that thing over there is. I'm heading over there right now."

Sonic slowly swayed to a stand, and grabbed his walking stick again. He limped over towards the light. Tails quickly jumped up and followed after him. The two walked through the trees, towards the blinking light. As they got closer, they saw that there was another road beyond the trees where the light had been blinking. When the last of the trees was out of the way, they at last saw what the blinking light had been.

It was a green four-door car that had pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. The engine was switched off, but the emergency blinkers were still turned on. Those were the yellow lights Sonic had seen. However, the owner was nowhere to be seen. It looked like he had abandoned his car in such a hurry that he had forgotten to switch off the lights.

"A car," Tails said. "I wonder how long it's been here."

"I dunno..." Sonic said. He turned his head this way and that, trying to take in the surroundings. Off to the right, the road curved to the right around a bend. Sonic remembered that on the last road, he saw that it had gone into a left turn too. Apparently, they were still on the same road, only after the turn. They'd cut the corner through the trees. However, as he looked over there, he saw a thin trail of oily smoke drifting up into the sky. Again, his curiosity getting the better of him, Sonic hobbled over towards the smoke to see what it was.

"Hey, where are you going?" Tails asked.

"I'm gonna go look at something," Sonic responded, not bothering to look at Tails.

As he got around the curve, he saw that the smoke was coming from a massive pileup of cars. There had to be at least ten vehicles in the mess, but there could have been more. It was hard to tell with how much the cars had been mangled and smashed to pieces. Some cars had been overturned, others had been smashed into pancakes of metal, and even a few had been sheared into two pieces. The only thing consistent among all of the cars is that they had been blackened by a fire. Some smoke was still drifting up from the remains, but the fire had already burned itself out.

"This is terrible..." Tails said. "What caused this?"

"I don't know."

Sonic gazed around, trying to look for an answer to Tails' question. He then noticed something strange. Around the wreckage, there were several craters, which seemed to have been caused by explosions. One of them had knocked over a tree, and it had smashed a pickup truck's cab.

"Do you see those?" Sonic asked, pointing his finger at the craters.

"Yeah," Tails murmured back.

"I don't think a car wreck could cause that. A lot of those things are too far away from the pileup."

"Then what did cause it?"

Rather than reply, Sonic decided to walk around, see if he could find more evidence. As he stepped around a blackened sedan, he saw something that made his heart sink even more. Splayed out across the pavement was a ravaged corpse of a female tabby cat, her clothes ripped to shreds and covered with her own blood. There was a large hole in her back. A pool of crimson stained the concrete red around her. Tails let out a gasp behind him. As the sorrow washed over Sonic's mind, he couldn't help but think that this situation felt familiar.

_Kyle's burned corpse was lying on the pavement, in the middle of all those burning cars..._

"He did this," Sonic said with an edge of anger.

"Who?" Tails asked.

"Robotnik."

Sonic let out a growl of rage, and gave the side of the sedan he was next to a good kick.

"I'm gonna kill that asshole!" Sonic screamed.

He then realized he had let his bad leg bear all of the weight as he had used his good leg to kick the car. A sharp spike of pain shot through his body, and he fell to the ground with a hard thump.

"Sonic! You okay?" Tails said, kneeling next to him.

"Yeah...just pissed off," he said as he leaned up with his arms. He looked down at his bandaged leg. "Stupid leg..."

He looked back at the corpse of that cat.

_Nobody deserves to die like that. The only thing she ever did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time. War is so cruel. _

"What do we do?" Tails asked.

_Good question Tails, _Sonic thought. _What do we do now? _

"Hey! I know!" Tails said, getting an excited grin on his face.

"What?"

"That car over there with the lights!" Tails said, as he pointed back to the first car they had seen. "Maybe it's still working. I can drive it while you rest."

"But Tails...you don't even have a license. You're not even old enough by half."

Tails sighed and shook his head, like he thought Sonic was a moron.

"So? I can fly a plane, can't I? I think I can handle a car. Besides, I don't think there's any cops left to arrest us anyway."

Sonic blinked, and smiled a bit.

"Sorry, I forgot. Okay then, it's a plan. Help me over there."

Tails shouldered Sonic, and helped him back over to the car. After helping Sonic to lie down in the back seat, Tails jumped into the driver's seat. If the fox had been like any other kid, he would have probably been intimidated by the controls. However, since he was just as interested in machines as his mother, she had often shown him how their family car worked. While the setup looked different from the family car, he recognized most of the important stuff easily. The dashboard gauges, the steering wheel, the gear shifter, the headlight controls, the accelerator, the brakes, all of it.

His eyes then darted to the steering wheel column. In a stroke of pure luck, the keys were still in the ignition. Tails then glanced at the gauges on the dashboard. The car still had three quarters of a tank of gas left too. However, that still didn't mean they were home free just yet. Who knew how long those emergency lights had been blinking? It would be a big drain on the battery. His mother told him about it all the time, every time she accidentally left her lights on. He quickly switched off the blinkers to keep from losing any more power.

Tails looked back at the key once more, tension rising. He slowly reached over to the key, and grasped it firmly. It was the moment of truth.

_Here goes..._

He turned the key. The engine coughed and sputtered in response, but it didn't fully ignite. Tails let go of the key. Not ready to admit defeat yet, the fox turned the key again. The engine sputtered some more. Still, the engine didn't fully come to life. Tails let out a sigh, and then he twisted the key once more.

_Please work...please..._

The engine sputtered again...and then let out a satisfying roar. Tails let out a sigh of relief.

"That's the best sound I've heard all day..." he heard Sonic say.

Tails looked back at him and nodded. It seemed that for the first time in a good while, things were looking up for them.

However, he did realize something. They had a car now...but they still didn't have any idea on where they were going to go. On that thought, Tails' eyes once again swept across the inside of the car, as he struggled to come up with a plan. His eyes rested on a folded up piece of paper in the passenger seat next to him. He picked it up and looked at it. The paper had _"Zeraw Interstate Highway Map" _written on it. Tails almost cried with joy as he finally realized what he was holding.

He quickly unfolded it, trying to pinpoint their location. That was quite difficult though, as he once again remembered that all the roads they had walked down had looked the same. Tails had stopped looking at the road signs a long time ago too. Most of them didn't display anything more than "East 45" or "North 125". Without knowledge of the roadways, the signs were meaningless to him...

Tails suddenly grinned and gave himself a mental slap on the head.

_I've got a map here! Now I can figure out how all these numbered roads link up! First though, I need to find out what road this is..._

He took his gaze away from the map and looked down the road. He saw a small signpost up ahead. He squinted to make out the writing on the sign, and saw that it said "West 37". The fox quickly looked back at the map, and soon spotted the road on the map. He traced the route of the road with his finger, seeing where they would end up if they stayed on this route. What he saw gave him immense joy. About twenty miles up ahead was the city of Carlboron, a place that might have a running hospital, and possibly food as well. Sure, they had no money to pay for it...but getting the money could wait till later. The important thing right now was survival.

Satisfied with the plan, Tails slipped the car into drive, and gently pressed down on the accelerator. With a lurch, the car moved onto the road and was soon on its way, speeding down the road.

"Everything is going to be just fine," Tails said.


	9. Relief at Last?

**Chapter 9: Relief at Last? **

**March 15th, 2314 – 10:30 PM – Carlboron, Zeraw**

'Everything is going to be just fine,' Tails had said to Sonic.

As they had driven down the road, Tails had laid out his plan. Drive to Carlboron, look for a doctor to fix his leg, and possibly find a way that they could get their hands on some money and supplies. It did sound 'just fine', like Tails had put it. But as they got closer to the city, Sonic couldn't help but think that this wasn't as promising as it sounded.

Evidence that things were not 'just fine' was all around them, as Sonic sat up from lying down and watched what went past the car windows. The only vehicle driving on the road was the one they were riding in. There wasn't anyone walking around either. What few buildings had lights on didn't indicate there was any life inside of them. This ghost town theme continued even as they pulled onto Terahummen Expressway, which apparently was supposed to be a major street in the town. All ten lanes of the road were totally empty, save for abandoned cars and other debris.

Finally, the car rounded a bend on the expressway and the city proper emerged into view. What a horrible sight it was. The huge skyscrapers in the middle of town had all received massive collateral damage. One building had a gigantic hole in it, and it was a miracle in itself that the building hadn't collapsed yet. On another one, it looked like the top of the building had been blown completely off. What's more, another one of the giant edifices seemed to have collapsed. There was a giant plume of smoke coming forth from the bottom of the towers, probably because one had fallen down and had been caught ablaze. All the towers that were still standing were burning merrily, and the smaller buildings beneath them didn't look to be in better shape. It was quite sad, thinking about the fact that no firemen would be coming by to put out the blaze.

Well, so much for everything being 'just fine'.

"Robotnik got here before we did," Sonic said with a sigh. "Now everyone's gone."

_Just how many people does he have to kill? I bet he wouldn't even be satisfied if he killed everyone on the planet. _

"What should we do then, Sonic?" Tails asked, as he carefully maneuvered around an overturned semi-truck lying across the road. "Are we going to stay here?"

"Yeah...there might not be anyone to fix this leg, but at least we can try to find some food."

Tails nodded silently, not taking his eyes away from the street in front of him. He slowly pulled off of the expressway and onto a smaller side street. After about a minute, they saw a large sign towering above the roadway. This one was still lit up, and it read "_Tifa's Grocery and Deli"_. Next to the words was what looked like a grinning female fox-dog hybrid with black fur and red hair. She had the warmest, most inviting smile Tails had ever seen. If she were a real person, Tails would have probably flown up there and hugged her. It looked like they'd finally have food after all.

"Food at last..." Sonic mumbled. "I can't believe it."

Tails had to agree with him. They'd been without any real food for days, and now they were finally going to get some. The fox quickly pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, being careful to avoid the stray shopping carts strewn about the place. The car screeched to a halt on the sidewalk right next to the front door. Tails killed the engine, and got out of the car. Sonic opened the left rear passenger door behind him. Tails looked surprised that he was willing to get out, after what happened to his leg.

"You sure you wanna walk on that?" Tails asked, indicating his leg.

"Yeah I'm sure!" Sonic said. "I'm more worried about getting full than keeping this leg in tip top shape right now! Enough talking, let's just grab some grub!"

The automatic front door obligingly opened as they stepped past the motion sensor for it. Inside, the place was a mess. Most of the lights were off, and more shopping carts and trash were scattered around. Stray boxes of food were also splayed across the floor. Furthermore, a great deal of the shelves seemed to be empty from here. It looked like they hadn't been the only ones with the idea of looting stores when Robotnik came to town. That didn't deter the pair though as they trudged into the store, searching the place to salvage whatever they could find. They both split up, checking to see if their favorite foods were still here.

While Sonic went to the meat section (probably to look for stuff to make chilidogs with), Tails decided to go down the cereal aisle first. Back when he was still at home, he just had to have a bowl of his favorite cereal called M's Munchies every morning. Otherwise, he just wouldn't feel right for the rest of the day. Nine days was the longest he'd ever been without it, as far as he could remember. He just _had_ to get it first, because of that.

His heart pounding in anticipation, he turned the corner into the aisle. It was completely empty...save for one box. With suspense pulsing through his body, he quickly grabbed the box and held it up in front of him to see what brand it was. The top of the box had written upon it the words _"M's Munchies"._ He saw a blue fox wearing a red headband on the front of the box, smiling at him. Tails smiled back at the blue fox, knowing that this was his favorite cereal mascot M. M stood over a giant bowl full of red and blue marshmallow Ms, and grain Ms as well. Without further hesitation, Tails tore open the top of the container, and ripped open the bag of cereal inside.

Tails quickly began to stuff his face full of the cereal as he jammed his entire head inside the box, not really caring that the cereal was flying all over the floor as he fed himself. He then gagged, as he realized he was choking on something. Tails spit whatever it was out into his gloved hand, and looked at it. It was the cereal prize's package. The fox tore it open, and was rewarded with a red headband just like M's. He quickly put it on, out of thankfulness to his favorite cereal mascot for feeding him again, and then returned to stuffing his head inside the box. A few minutes later, the box was empty. Tails tossed it aside, satisfied now that his stomach was full. He sat down on the floor, propping himself up against one of the shelves, and laid there just resting. That was quite possibly the best box of cereal he had ever had in his entire life.

Tails heard distant footsteps approaching from the end of the aisle, and turned his head towards the sound. Sonic stepped into view, holding a pack of hotdogs. He was eating the hotdogs straight out of the package. After he finished gulping down the last hotdog inside the pack, he let the package fall to the floor.

"Looks like we both found our favorite foods, sorta," Sonic said, with a grin.

Tails grinned back. Ordinarily, Sonic would have probably tried to cook the hotdogs first, and then fix the ingredients to make chilidogs though. However, with no way to cook it here, he'd just had to rough it. Tails did wonder though...wasn't it usually a bad idea to eat undercooked meat? His mom had warned him about it a few times, and she said doing that would make you sick.

Before Tails could offer a reply though, he heard the rhythmic pounding of dozens of footsteps. They were coming from the front of the store and headed their way. Sonic heard the footsteps too, it seemed, as his eyes went wide with fear. Tails' own eyes enlarged as well. Sonic quickly hobbled over towards Tails, so he could get between whoever was coming their way and protect him.

_Oh no...who is that? Robotnik's robots? A monster? Please don't let it be something bad, I don't wanna die... Sonic won't be able to fight it whatever it is, because he's still hurt. _

Sonic had just managed to stand in front of him and hold his arms out to block him when the footsteps reached the end of their aisle. Several dark shapes flew around the corner and stopped in front of them. Tails had seen enough scary people for a lifetime in the last few days. First it was Robotnik, then Tex at the gas station, and now they were getting attacked by black phantoms. He ducked behind Sonic and peeked out from over his shoulder.

Even as Tails ducked behind Sonic, the hedgehog still stood his ground. He could finally see who had been making the footsteps. Sonic wasn't sure what to expect when he heard those steps, but it certainly wasn't several grown-ups dressed in what looked like black S.W.A.T. gear, holding huge assault rifles. They had all managed to move into the aisle and assume firing positions so quickly that Sonic didn't have time to blink. For a few seconds, nobody did anything. The cops simply aimed their rifles at him and Tails, while Sonic continued to hold his arms out to protect Tails.

_Yeah right, like my body would suddenly be strong enough to stop bullets, when it couldn't stop Robotnik's laser before. _

Finally, one of them spoke, breaking the silence.

"It's all right men," he said with a heavy tone. "They're just kids."

All of the cops lowered their weapons and stood up in relaxed positions. The one who had spoken first, a yellow and brown bobcat, walked over to them. His huge size alone would have made him look very intimidating, but that big black rifle in his hands and his black uniform made him even more terrifying looking. Even though the bobcat clearly meant them no harm, Sonic unconsciously edged backwards away from him.

"Sorry about that kid," he said, that thick husky tone again. "Didn't mean to scare you and your friend." He indicated Tails on the ground next to him. The bobcat then noticed the bandaged wound in his leg, and kneeled down to get a better look. "Whoa...where'd you get that from?"

Sonic stammered out a response. "R-R-Robotnik."

"I see..." the bobcat then looked back up at Sonic's face with a smile. "Come with us then. We've got a makeshift hospital set up at the police station. We can get you fixed up."

"Really?" Sonic said, his mood suddenly shifting from terror to relief. These must just be the local cops, nobody else.

"Yeah, we've got doctors and surgeons from the hospital there," he said. He then turned back to the others. "All right all of you; help 'em to the truck."

While a tiger cop walked past Sonic to help Tails, another one (this one a green chameleon) walked over to Sonic and said, "Need any help?"

"No...I'll be all right," Sonic said. He followed the other cops out of the grocery store. Parked next to their green car was a huge black and white truck, with _Carlboron Police Department_ written across the side. The first officer to reach the back of the truck opened up the back door, and people started climbing inside. Sonic got inside the truck when it was his turn too. It was a bit hard getting up the steps with the leg, but he managed.

Sonic took a look around the inside of the van. At the front of this rear compartment was a gun rack full of assault rifles, shotguns, and handguns, in addition to a rack of bulletproof vests and some first aid kits. The rest of the truck was taken up by two benches, running along either side of the vehicle. Sonic took a seat on the bench on the left. A few moments later, the bobcat, apparently the leader of the cops, sat down next to him.

"Sorry for not properly introducing myself before," he said, extending his hand for a handshake. "I'm Lieutenant Zack Marlborosso."

"My name is Sonic Hedgehog," Sonic said, shaking his hand.

"My name is Miles Prower, but everyone calls me Tails," Tails said.

The cop cast a look at Tails' tails.

"Well that's really strange," he said. "I would be totally freaked out by that right now, if I wasn't already totally drained by what's happened recently. Robotnik has killed this city, just like the rest of the country."

"Yeah..." Sonic said. "We were in Mor when he destroyed it too."

"You were?" Zack said. "I'm amazed you managed to escape. Anyway, Robotnik's forces came to this city a few days ago, kidnapping or killing anyone they met. After he left, me and the rest of my fellow officers who managed to survive that decided to organize a refugee camp at the police station. We've been patrolling the city, searching for any survivors we can find."

"Then why'd you look like you were gonna attack us at first?" Tails asked.

"Because our main means of finding survivors is via motion sensors," Zack said back. He held up a small box with a handle on one end and a radio antenna on the other. There was a small display screen on the box in the middle, with dots indicating each of the people inside the truck. The area outside the truck was empty of dots though.

"This thing only tells us if something is moving in the general area, not whether they're friendly or hostile. We've been attacked by Robotnik's robots periodically during our searches, so we can't take chances on keeping our guard down."

Zack looked around the truck, at the dozen or so police officers.

"You see all these cops?" Zack said.

"Yeah?" Sonic said.

"You're looking at two thirds of what's left of the entire Carlboron police force here."

"What!" Tails said. "Where are all the other cops?"

"When Robotnik first attacked the city, the CPD launched a counter attack of our own." Zack said, and then he let out a heavy sigh. "Out of the three hundred policemen who participated in the operation, only eighteen survived and escaped capture, myself included."

Zack closed his eyes, a look of grief tracing across his face.

"Our police force just wasn't trained or equipped for something like that. We bust drunk drivers, crack houses, and gangs, but we aren't meant to fight in wars. Most of our standard issue ammunition bounced right off of the robots' armors, and there wasn't any time to go grab better firepower from the armory. This is just like the first Robotnik War that I fought in."

"You fought in the first Robotnik War?" Sonic said. "Our dads fought in there too!"

"Oh, really? I see," Zack said, as he turned away from them. He seemed to be digging for memories. "I remember my first battle being at Reppoc in Lufetsaw. That was the day that--"

He paused in mid speech, his eyes widening in surprise. His gaze fell upon Sonic and Tails again.

"You've got to be kidding," he said. "Don't tell me that your dads are...Swift Hedgehog and Kyle Prower?"

Sonic smiled. "Yeah...that's right."

"Well I'll be!" Zack said. "I knew I recognized your last names. I'm meeting the kids of the two greatest war heroes of Robotnik War I! That battle in Reppoc made them famous!"

Sonic looked back at Tails, although he noticed he had a frown on his face.

"What's wro—" Zack started, then he stopped. He then coughed and regained his composure and looked back at Tails. "Oh...sorry. I forgot. Kyle was on the news recently. Said Robotnik attacked that university lab and killed him with his wife. Is that right?"

Tails nodded a few times, as he closed his eyes. Sonic turned back to face Zack again.

"He killed his mom right in front of his eyes," Sonic said. "We didn't see Kyle die, but we found the body later..."

"That's horrible!" the green chameleon sitting across from them said.

"It almost makes what we're going through right now feel like a walk in the park," the tiger next to them. "Having your parents die at a young age must be terrible."

"I gotta ask though..." Zack said. "How'd you get all the way to Zeraw? The murders were in Forest Town, Elona, if I remember right, and that place is thousands of miles away from here."

As the truck continued to drive to the CPD, Sonic and Tails laid out their story for the last nine days before the cops. From fleeing Forest Town in the Tornado to helping Carrie Strafer find her new home. From ending up in Zeraw after taking a warp hole to having a personal encounter with Robotnik, which is what caused Sonic's leg wound. From fleeing Tex at the gas station to winding up here.

"What an incredible story," the chameleon said again. "You've been through a lot, haven't you?"

"Mmmmhmmm..." Sonic mumbled.

"Don't worry though. Once we get you to the station, we'll get that leg fixed up, and we'll give you a full meal. You both deserve it."

"Thank you sir," Tails said.

"It's no problem kid," Zack said with a smile. "It's our jobs, after all."


	10. A Hidden Refuge

**Chapter 10: A Hidden Refuge **

**March 15th, 2314 – 11:00 PM –Carlboron, Zeraw**

For several minutes, the truck drove along without anyone saying much. Most of the sound came from the squeaking and rattling as the truck bounced over imperfections in the road, not to mention the rumble of the engine at the front of the truck. Sonic took this time to glance across the faces of the people he was riding with. Most of the cops looked dogged tired, like they hadn't had a decent night's sleep in days. Lines were forming under their eyes. A lot of them were just barely clutching to their weapons with one hand, letting their barrels rattle on the floor as the vehicle bounced up and down.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a beeping noise from Zack's motion detector. He pressed some buttons on the side of it, and gazed intently at the screen. He smiled a little.

"What is it?" Sonic asked.

"It might be another survivor," Zack said. "It looks like he's in the Carlboron General Hospital right now."

He turned on his radio and spoke into it.

"Jeremy...head for the hospital. We've got a potential survivor there."

"Roger that," the voice on the other end said, through a haze of static.

The van they were in gave a sudden lurch as the weight shifted to the right side of the vehicle. Sonic reached out to hold onto the edge of the bench, to keep from slipping off. The vehicle then shot down the road. A few minutes later, the vehicle screeched to a halt. In a flash, the back doors opened up and the policemen leaped outside.

Sonic looked out through the open doors and he could see the hospital itself. It seemed to be in about as good a shape as the rest of the city, which was to say it was quite ransacked. A lot of windows had been broken open, and even a car had crashed through the wall in one place. That didn't really interest Sonic though, because he could see the survivor standing outside the front entrance.

"Hey! Over here!" the survivor shouted.

He looked like a doctor, because he was wearing a white lab coat over a blue doctor's uniform. The clothes were filthy though. It looked like he'd fallen into a mud puddle or something. As for his species, he looked like a gray bat, with his oversized ears and the large wings fanning out behind him as he waved at the policemen. He rushed towards them frantically as they jumped out of the truck.

"Hey! Pick me up!" he yelled.

The officers hurriedly ran over to him as well, lowering their weapons as they saw he wasn't a threat. One of them took him by the hand and helped him into the truck. Meanwhile, Zack directed the others to search the building and see if there was anyone else in there.

"Thank you so much!" he said enthusiastically as he climbed into the truck. He was rattling so much from being happy it looked like he'd break into pieces. "It's been days since the last time I've seen any other people. Thank God for you!"

He took a seat next to Tails and was about to say something to him, when Zack started asking him questions.

"Hey...Mr. Doctor. What's your name?"

"John Skeleck," he said, as he reached out a hand to shake Zack's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"Lieutenant Zack Marlborosso," the bobcat said as he gave Dr. Skeleck a firm handshake. "Anyway, why were you still in the hospital? We moved everyone in there to the police station two days ago. Is there anyone else still in there besides you?"

"I wouldn't know. I just got back in town today."

Zack looked him up and down in his muddy clothes and asked, "Where were you before? Going swimming in a swamp?"

Dr. Skeleck shook his head.

"No no... It's been much worse than that. I've been out in the woods for days, trying to keep from getting caught again by Robotnik's army."

Zack's eyebrows arced up.

"Caught again? Robotnik had you caught before?"

"Yes, that's right."

"How'd you escape?"

"Well it's kind of a long story..." he said, as he removed his glasses and rubbed them with a clean part of his lab coat. "Are you willing to hear it?"

"Of course…after all, part of my job is listening to what others have to say," Zack said. "Go right ahead."

Dr. Skeleck slid his clean glasses onto his face again, looking Zack square in the face.

"Well, it started about nine days ago, I think. I had just gotten home from work, and had gotten out of the car. When I was looking for my keys to unlock the front door though, I felt someone stab me in the back with a syringe. I turned around, but I saw nobody."

"What?" Zack asked, dumbfounded. "What do you mean nobody? What're you talking about?"

"Come to think of it, there was a weird shimmering right behind me, like something was there but it was invisible."

"A robot with optic camouflage maybe? I don't like the sound of that... Thank goodness we haven't met any of those yet."

"Anyway, whatever I was injected with knocked me to sleep before I could take a closer look. When I came to, I was in the cargo hold of a battleship owned by Robotnik. Inside the ship with me were several other doctors, plus some surgical equipment taken from the hospital."

"What happened next?"

"As soon as we were all awake, a robotic soldier walked in. He said that Robotnik had ordered us to be kidnapped. We were taken directly to his headquarters, and escorted to Dr. Robotnik's private chambers at the top of his base. He'd been badly mangled in a grenade attack, he said. He told us that war hero Kyle Prower did it to him right before he died. We were told to heal him and reconstruct his body with plastic surgery, or we would be executed."

"So that's why he kidnapped you and the other doctors."

"You helped heal Dr. Robotnik?" Tails said, looking up at the older bat.

"Yes I did," Skeleck said.

"You helped the guy who killed my daddy!" Tails screamed, tears coming out of his eyes.

He jumped up and tried to grab at Dr. Skeleck's face.

"Tails!" Sonic shouted. "What're you doing! Stop it!"

He started to reach over to restrain Tails. Tails began grabbing for Dr. Skeleck's large bat ears. He looked like he was trying to rip them off.

"You helped him! You helped him!" Tails screamed over and over.

"Damn it Tails!" Zack said. "Stop!"

Zack reached over and grabbed the little boy. It was easy for him, since the bobcat was many times larger than Tails. Tails kicked and screamed as he tried to break free from Zack's grip.

"Let me go!" he yelled.

"Tails! Calm down!" Sonic yelled. "He didn't have a choice!"

This time, Tails looked at Sonic, and he seemed to listen. Tears still streamed from his eyes, but he seemed to have come to his senses. He stopped struggling, and allowed Zack to set him down on a nearby bench.

"Sorry..." he said, bowing down to face the ground.

After a little pause, Sonic broke the silence as he spoke to Dr. Skeleck.

"Can you tell us more?"

After Dr. Skeleck recovered from the surprise attack, and took his eyes off of Tails, he started talking again.

"Well, after we were done...Robotnik did let us go. He told us it didn't matter if we lived or died anyway, so he didn't bother having us executed. He thought it might be more fun to watch his robots hunt us down as we left, I bet. Most of us got gunned down later as he let his soldiers out of his base, or got lost in the woods."

He let out a sigh, and closed his eyes.

"I was such a fool...why did I have to be so selfish? So weak?"

"What're you talking about?" Sonic asked.

He slammed a fist on the bench next to him.

"Why'd we have to just do as he asked!" Dr. Skeleck bellowed. "We could have killed him right there with our surgical tools, and probably ended the war if we weren't so worried about saving our own lives! A lot of us died later anyway! Now I can't help but hate myself being such a coward!"

He turned his head down and continued beating his fist on the metal. His wing flapped behind him, threatening to hit the people sitting beside him.

"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" he screamed.

"Jeez, calm down!" Zack said, reaching out to hold him.

"Sorry about that," the bat said. "I've been through a lot lately."

"I understand," Zack said, moving back.

Then the bobcat's head suddenly shot up, as if he'd realized something important.

"Hey…" Zack started again. "So you were at the base? Can you tell me where it is?"

"I think so," Dr. Skeleck said. "Robotnik's base actually isn't too far away from this place. After I winded through the woods, I came to West 37, and followed the road here, because I live in this city. Too bad that there was nothing but what you probably saw out there waiting for me."

"Hmm... That's the same way we got here," Sonic said.

"I'd guess his base is about thirty miles from here, give or take. I was a lot closer to home than I thought."

Sonic's ears perked up at that.

"That's interesting," Zack said, with a hint of excitement. "After we get back to headquarters, I'd like to get a full account of all that you know. This could be useful information."

Zack wasn't the only one who was happy about this new development. Sonic was busy scheming, thinking of how he was going to take down Robotnik now and avenge Kyle. His opportunity for revenge had finally come. Then he remembered his leg, and looked down at it. That would need to be healed first. Sonic turned to face Zack.

"Umm...Zack," Sonic said.

Zack turned to face him.

"Yes?"

"Is it okay if Dr. Skeleck heals my leg first?"

Zack looked back to the doctor.

"Do you mind doing it?"

Then the bat looked at Sonic and smiled, and then he looked back at Zack.

"Not at all...it's the least I can do for you all picking me up. Do you have equipment at the police station?"

"Yes, we have an emergency medical ward set up. We could really use your help in there too."

"Excellent, then I shall get started as soon as we arrive."

"Thanks a lot, Dr. Skeleck," Sonic said.

"It's no problem at all."

---

A few minutes later, the other cops returned to the truck. No other survivors had been found inside the hospital. They didn't find any other survivors for the rest of the day either, but Sonic hardly noticed. Very soon, he would be back in tip top shape, and ready to go fight Robotnik once again. He would do it for everyone. For his dad, for Tails' dad, for all these cops, for everyone Robotnik killed, and so on. He'd especially do it for Tails, with the way he'd made the fox act like this.

At the end of the day, the police truck pulled into the underground garage of the station, and jerked to a halt in a parking space near the entrance doors to the station itself. With some help from the tiger cop, Sonic got down out of the van. Tails followed close behind, as did Dr. Skeleck. The parking garage was largely dark, with most of the lights turned off. It looked like they were trying to save power, same with how Tex had left most of his lights off at the gas station. Only the lights around the exit door were on. Beyond the exit door, they stepped into a hallway. Most of the corridors here had the lights off too. Just enough lights had been left on to let people see where they were going, but otherwise the place was almost completely black.

It felt like the forest had been before they had made it to this city. If there weren't a ton of cops following them around, Sonic would probably have never gone inside this place. He felt very vulnerable in the dark, even though he knew this place was supposed to be a safe haven. While the other cops dispersed around the building, the two of them were escorted down various corridors by Zack. Eventually, they came to a door that had a sign that said "_Break Room"_ over it. However, a cardboard sign taped to the door had "_Medical Ward"_ scrawled across it in black marker. Zack stopped in front of the door, and turned to face Sonic, Tails, and Dr. Skeleck.

"Go on in," Zack said. "We've got doctors and surgeons in there treating people, and we could really use Dr. Skeleck's help too. Sonic, you should be healed soon too."

"Thanks a lot!" Sonic said. "You have no idea how terrible it is to have to walk everywhere like this."

"Oh yeah..." Zack said with a smile. He looked down at his own legs, seeming to try to visualize one of them being banged up like Sonic's. He then looked back up. "I can imagine. Anyway, I have other things to take care of right now. I'll see you later."

He gave them a small wave, and started walking down the corridor.

"Bye!" Tails said, waving back to him.

Sonic waved with him, although he was thinking more about getting his leg back in working order. He desperately wanted to go running again.

Once Zack was out of sight, Sonic pushed the doors open into the Break Room/Medical Ward. A welcome flash of light greeted his eyes. All of the lights were on in this area. As Sonic's eyes readjusted to the burst of light, the room came into focus. The place was extremely busy. Many cots had been scattered around the room, with what looked like dozens of wounded people on them. The injuries ranged from minor things like cuts and bruises, to full amputations of arms and legs. A bull was missing all of his limbs, save for his right arm. Sonic winced at the sight of that. He briefly wondered what could have caused something like that...then he realized he probably didn't want to know. However, it sure did make his own wounds seem a lot more minor.

Doctors in hospital jumpsuits ran around, hurrying to treat people. There looked to be a makeshift surgical bay in the back of the room, surrounded by curtains. Also, the pool tables and pinball machines that would normally be entertaining off duty cops had been put to use instead as tables to hold the doctors' various tools and medicines. The whole room seemed chaotic, with the patients vastly outnumbering the medical staff.

Suddenly, a pink female kangaroo screeched to a halt in front of the trio. She was wearing a nurse's uniform, and she looked totally flustered.

However, after she managed to catch her breath, she said, "Hey there! My name's Joy! Are you new here?"

"Yeah," Sonic said.

She looked down at the bandage on his leg.

"I'm guessing you want that fixed up, right?" she asked.

"Oh yeah," Sonic said. "If you fixed my leg, I would be eternally grateful."

The kangaroo gave a smile, and then she looked at Dr. Skeleck.

"Hey…who're you? I haven't seen you around here."

"My name is Dr. Skeleck," the bat started. "I only just got back in town today, only to find all this mess. Can you help me with this boy? I want to treat him first."

"Sure, I can do that," she said with a bright smile.

"Thanks a lot," the bat said, and then he turned to Sonic. "First we better have a look at it though, before we administer any treatment."

Nurse Joy walked towards a nearby cot, which was empty.

"Lie down over here," she said.

Sonic obeyed, and hobbled over before lying down on the bed.

"This may hurt a little..." Joy said. "I'm gonna take off this bandage."

"Okay," Sonic said.

She slowly unfurled the bandage, exposing the wound Sonic had been walking around with for the last few days. It didn't look all that good. There was a big red gash where Robotnik's laser had scorched his skin. It was inflamed and blistery, not to mention it was oozing slightly.

"Wow...what is that?"

"I got shot with a laser... It's been terrible trying to walk on it. It hurts every time I take a step."

"How long have you had that?" Dr. Skeleck asked. "It looks like it's been infected."

"I dunno exactly, but it's at least a couple days old. We haven't been able to find a hospital for days, with how Robotnik's been running around."

"You poor things!" Joy said with dismay, clasping her arms together.

She had said it with such a flourish that Sonic almost thought she was being sarcastic.

"Goodness...calm down Joy," Dr. Skeleck said, moving over. "Lemme get a closer look first."

The doctor sat down on the cot and held up Sonic's leg, Sonic wincing at the pain a little.

"Does it hurt a lot?"

"Oh yeah," Sonic said.

"Where'd you get it anyway?" he asked, looking through his glasses at him.

"Robotnik shot me," Sonic said darkly.

The doctor hardened his gaze. "Dr. Robotnik himself took time out of his busy schedule of taking over the world just to shoot you, a little kid?"

Sonic growled a bit, because Robotnik had called him a little kid too.

"I'm not a little kid! And he did shoot me!"

"Fine, fine..." the doctor said with a sigh. "I'll take your word for it. I suppose it's not all that unbelievable anyways, since I've had a run-in with him myself."

He turned to Joy.

"Where do you keep the medicines and those sorts of things?"

Joy pointed to a curtain covering the other side of the room. After saying thanks, he helped Sonic up off of the bed and escorted him behind the curtains at the end of the room. Back there was another bed and another pool table that had medicines of all sorts stacked on top of it. Dr. Skeleck motioned to the bed, and Sonic sat down. As the doctor rifled through the bottles, a devilish grin crossed Sonic's face, as he plotted his next move.

_Soon as this leg is healed, I'm gonna slip out of here, run down to Robotnik's base, and kill him. Then I'll have my revenge, and the war will be over. I'm not gonna make stupid mistakes like I did the last time I fought him. _

Suddenly, someone poked him in the arm. He looked up and saw that it was Dr. Skeleck. He was holding a tube of some kind of ointment, and he had a puzzled look on his face.

"What is it?" Sonic asked him.

"You..." he said. "Why've you got that devilish grin on your face all of a sudden? I was busy telling you how I'm gonna treat your injury."

Sonic's face formed into a frown.

"Oh...it's nothing," Sonic lied. "Sorry about that. What did you say about my leg again?"

"Well Sonic...after I do some work to the area of your tissue that was burned by the laser blast, you're going to have to apply this cream to the area twice a day for a few days, to help the damaged area heal."

He held out the tube in his hands to Sonic. Sonic took it from him and looked at it. On it was written _"Lazengamiza." _

"Laaa...zeeeeeeen...gameeeeezaaaaaa…?" Sonic mumbled.

"Yes...all medicines seem to have odd names, don't they?" the bat said with a laugh. "Anyway, this cream was specially prepared to treat injuries from lasers. It became very popular during Robotnik War I among Freedomian and human medics alike, from all the laser wounds that our soldiers got from Robotnik's forces. I think it should do just fine for treating that wound."

"Thanks a lot," Sonic said with a smile towards Skeleck. "I owe you one."

"Just doing my job," he said with a smile. "Anyway, lets get started on fixing that wound up of yours first. It shouldn't take long."


	11. Second Chance

**Chapter 11: Second Chance**

**March 21st, 2314 – 12:20 PM – Carlboron Police Department, Carlboron, Zeraw**

After Sonic had gotten his injury treated, he and Tails spent the next several days resting inside the police station with the other refugees. They mostly spent it inside the makeshift medical ward in the break room, since Dr. Skeleck had given Sonic strict orders that he need,ed to rest and let the leg heal up. The problem was Sonic absolutely hated being in one place for a long time and sparks flew all over the place from that order. Every chance he got, Sonic complained about it to him and the nurses, and today was no different.

As Joy came by with his lunch for today, Sonic moaned, "When am I gonna be allowed to walk around again? I'm gonna die if I don't get out of this bed!"

Joy rolled her eyes as he set down the lunch tray on a cardboard box next to Sonic's cot, which right now was serving as his bedside tray.

"Come on! Tell me!" he said.

She rolled her shoulders a bit, and then said with a smile, "Well, if you really wanna know, the doctor said you could start walking around today if you liked. The leg should be fine now and you can lose the crutches."

Sonic blinked, and then he gasped.

"Are you serious?" he said.

"Yep yep!" she said with a bright smile. "Go on, walk. Give it a try."

Sonic pushed the cover up off of his bed, and slid his legs down to the floor. As his bad leg landed on the floor and he stood up, he realized the pain from standing on it was now virtually gone. He tried taking a few steps, and he didn't feel pain then either. Then he tried running in place. Nope...no pain. Although with how fast Sonic moved his feet when he ran in place, he was in danger of destroying the tiling.

"Yeesh!" Joy hissed. "Stop it before we have to buy a new floor!"

"Sorry!" Sonic said, stopping his running.

He stepped to the side, looking down. He saw that it looked like someone had taken a jackhammer to where he had been running in place. The tiled floor was covered in cracks and there was a small impression where his feet had been running.

"Oops!" Sonic said. "Really sorry about that!"

"Heh heh," someone with a deep voice said.

Sonic looked up to see that it was Zack. He had a smile on his face. Even in the midst of this survival situation, that bobcat always seemed to try his best to remain cheerful and humorous. It was an endearing trait.

"Looks like your legs are fine now."

"Yeah, but I messed up the floor," Sonic said, in an embarrassed voice.

"Don't worry about it," Zack said. "We've got bigger problems to worry about than this old floor anyway. Hey though, maybe when this is all over, that'll give them an excuse to replace the tiling!"

He laughed.

"That will be great. I've been here for twenty years and not once have they gotten a new floor for this room. Thanks for that trick kid!"

Sonic nervously laughed, "Heh heh...no problem."

"Anyway..." Zack said, suddenly becoming businesslike as he turned to Joy. "I need Dr. Skeleck again."

This wasn't unusual. Zack had done this several times over the past few days, with how he'd been calling the doctor out. Sonic guessed it was because he was planning an attack on Robotnik's base, since Skeleck knew where it was. Now though, he could finally check to see for sure.

"Ready when you are, Mr. Marlborosso," the bat said as he was taken out of the room.

"I'll see you two later," Joy said, walking off. "I got other patients to take care of. Bye!"

"Bye," Tails said, and then he looked back at Sonic. "So what are we gonna do now Sonic? Your leg's all healed up, and we've got lots of food."

"The first thing I wanna do is go see what Zack has been doing with Dr. Skeleck all this time."

"Why would you wanna do that?"

Sonic was about to say he was planning to go after Robotnik, but then he stopped before he said the first word. He didn't want to get Tails worried. About a second later, he began speaking.

"Well, it's getting boring hanging out in this room, and that's the only thing I can think of right now to check out."

Sonic slid off of his cot, and zipped over to the door. He opened it up, and a moment later he was gone. Down the hall, Zack and Skeleck were rounding a corner. Sonic ducked behind a vending machine so he could watch them and stay out of sight. As they walked around the corner, Sonic zipped down the hall and stopped there at the corner where they were before. Down the hall, the cop and the doctor had entered a room with a sign over it that said _"Briefing Room"_. Sonic dashed over to the door and tried to open it. However, it wouldn't open for him, and the door rattled quite noisily. It looked like Zack had locked the door behind him. Sonic turned away from the door to look around for an alternate way to get in.

Sonic then spotted a ventilation duct on the floor next to the door. However, it was blocked by a cover. That didn't stop the hedgehog for long though. He pulled a quill out of his back, and sliced it across the corners of the cover, where screws were holding it closed. The cover, now loose, fell down. Sonic caught it though before it could hit the ground, preventing there from being any more noise. After that, he dropped his quill and took a look inside the duct.

The inside was almost pitch black. Sonic did not like the idea of going in there at all, being he wasn't exactly someone who enjoyed crawling into small dark places. However, he really wanted to know what Zack was up to, and went inside. It didn't really matter though that he couldn't see where he was going. There appeared to be only one way to go in the ducts anyway, so there was no chance of getting lost. However, it did feel quite claustrophobic. The hedgehog wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible.

He felt the duct slope upward. It was tricky trying to get up, with how the duct was totally made up of slick metal with nothing to grab onto. Sonic had to press his body against the sides to keep going up. Further up ahead, he could hear the faint sounds of voices, but he was too far away to make anything out. As he got closer though, the voices became more distinct. Sonic also saw that there was some light up ahead. There was a place where he could look down into the room and see what was going on. Right now, the only thing that Sonic could see from in here was Zack and Dr. Skeleck standing next to a table.

"We've nearly finished preparations," he heard Zack's voice say. "With your help, that is."

"I still can't believe you're serious about this," Dr. Skeleck's voice answered back. "Ten of you are going to sneak into Robotnik's base, which is probably packed to the gills with robots of all sorts? The odds would have to be a million to one!"

"Don't worry…we're not going in there to kill all of them. We're just going in to rescue any captured civilians. We slip in and out, just like that. No fuss, no muss. You're sure about where the prison is, aren't you?"

"I…suppose. My memory could be rusty though...after all the last time I was in there was over a week ago."

"Great time to bring that up! Ten of my best men are counting on you to have the correct information."

"Damn it…I'm doing my best! Even as ridiculous as I think this plan of yours is."

"And you call yourself a doctor..."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I thought doctors were supposed to save lives."

"Well we are but—"

"This plan is going to save who knows how many people from the roboticizer! You should be right behind it!"

"Hey, this isn't exactly the same thing as medicine, you know."

"Regardless, it's my job to preserve life as well, and I'm not going to just sit back like you are!"

There was the click of a door unlocking, and then it opened. Another voice joined the conversation.

"Uh...sir?"

Sonic recognized the voice as that of the chameleon cop in the truck. Zack quickly stopped to answer him.

"Yes?"

"We're all here and ready to start the meeting."

"Good good…everyone have a seat."

There was a sound of shuffling feet and the legs of chairs scratching across the tiled floor.

"Well, since you're all here, you'll be happy to know that we're about ready to carry out our operation, with the help of our good friend Dr. John Skeleck here."

Dr. Skeleck merely grunted in confirmation.

"Let's go over the plan one more time, and then we'll set it in motion in about half an hour."

Zack stepped over towards an easel with a blank sheet of paper displayed on it

"As we've said before, the goal of this operation is to break into Robotnik's prison where Dr. Skeleck was held before, and rescue all civilians in there who still haven't been roboticized yet. Now, we don't know exactly what's in this base, but we've already seen firsthand evidence of what resources Robotnik has with how he's destroyed our city. Therefore, this is to be a stealth operation. If a full-out battle starts, we'll be crushed in no time."

Zack pulled up the sheet of paper, to reveal a collection of photographs that appeared to show an area of Robotnik's base. He couldn't get a good look at any of the pictures though, because he was too far away.

"We think we may have a potential entry point into the base though, that will allow us to gain ingress without detection. I've scouted out the base myself, and I've noticed the refuse dump on the western side of the base. Robotnik dumps all of his garbage out there in large trucks, and the area is lightly guarded. Maybe if we steal aboard one of these trucks, we can slip in unnoticed."

Another sheet of paper was revealed, and underneath that it displayed a rough sketch of a floor plan, but it appeared rough and incomplete. Since it was probably a floor plan of Robotnik's base, Sonic looked at it hard and tried to memorize it as quickly as he could, before Zack changed the sheet again. Fortunately, since it was much bigger than the photographs, it was easier to see.

"Beyond that though, the operation is going to get much trickier. Even with Mr. Skeleck providing us with what he knows of the floorplan, we don't know where in the base these trucks are going to drop us off. We'll just have to play it by ear until we find a corridor that's on this map I'm showing you. Once we do get on track though, we make a beeline for the prison where Dr. Skeleck was held when he wasn't treating Robotnik, and rescue everyone we can find in there. Then we get out the same way we came in."

Zack put a hand down upon the table next to him.

"Now remember...Robotnik's forces outnumber us thousands to one. We need to avoid combat at all costs, so no Rambo shit. Got it?"

"Yes sir!" all the policemen said in unison.

Zack pulled all the sheets back so that the blank sheet of paper was on display on the easel again.

"Good then...we leave in an half an hour. Gear up and report to the parking garage at one o' clock."

Again, there was a scraping of chairs on the floor, as people got up and started to walk out of the room. Zack walked back into view, next to the table. Dr. Skeleck began talking to him again.

"What's in that big metal box you have there? It's got _"Property of Freedomian Army"_ written on the side of it."

Zack was silent, at least until the last footsteps had left the room. He brought the box in question into view of the vent cover, and dropped it on top of the table with a loud clank.

"Heh…this old thing? It's a souvenir from my time in Robotnik War I."

He flipped open the latch and the box opened. Inside was a large black gun that looked kind of like a gigantic rifle. There was a large stock on the back, in addition to a magazine sticking into a receiver in the top of the gun. The loose bullets in the case looked like they were at least six inches long, and the barrel was ridiculously long.

"Dear God!" the doctor shouted. "I thought you said you weren't doing any Rambo stuff!"

"I know I know…but don't worry. This is only in case we are discovered. You should have seen what happened before when we tried to fight them as they attacked the city. Everything except our rifle ammunition bounced right off of their metal hulls, and even then it didn't do a very good job. But this baby here can go through a foot of steel like a brick through plate glass! Don't tell anyone about it though, okay? I don't want any of my fellow officers to know I have this till it's too late for them to do anything about it."

"You are one insane and reckless man, you know that? First you're planning on trying to slip right under the nose of Robotnik's army, and now you're bringing that thing along."

"You'll love what I'm about to tell you what else I'm planning."

"Oh?"

"You're coming with us."

"_What? _You can't be serious!"

"Yes, I'm very serious. You're the only one here who's actually seen the inside of the base, so we're going to need your help in finding our way through."

"But I'm just a doctor, not a soldier! I've never even fired a water pistol before!"

"Don't worry... You won't have to fight. All you gotta do is guide us to the prison. That's it."

"I'm not going!"

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not!"

Sonic muffled a giggle. It was funny seeing adults like them argue like they were little five-year-olds. He did really like Zack's style though, mostly because he seemed willing to go headfirst into danger just like Sonic.

Now that Sonic knew what Zack was planning, he was already getting ideas for how he could steal along on the truck. Then he could break off from the group when they got inside, and go after Robotnik. This would be great. He started to crawl back down the tunnel, when he bumped into something. Something fuzzy...and with big ears.

"Ow!" it gasped.

Sonic jumped back a bit, but then he realized that it was Tails' voice. The kid must have followed him into the vent to see what he was doing.

"Tails, don't scare me like that," Sonic said.

"Sorry Sonic," the fox said.

They crawled out of the vent, and then sat against the wall next to the open cover.

"I guess you heard what they're talking about, right?"

"Yeah…they're really gonna go to that base to save the people?"

"Uh huh…I think I may tag along. Now that I'm healed, taking down Robotnik'll be a breeze."

"What! You still want to go after him?"

"Yep!"

"Don't do it! You'll die!"

"I'm going after him Tails, with or without you. You can't do anything to stop me."

Sonic sat up, and sped down the hall towards the garage. It was time.


	12. Memories

**Chapter 12: Memories **

**March 21st, 2314 – 12:55 PM – Carlboron Police Department, Carlboron, Zeraw**

As Tails saw his brother take off down the hall, he futilely wondered what he could do to stop Sonic from leaving. A quick glance at a nearby clock on the wall showed that he didn't have much time for thought. It was now 12:55 pm, five minutes before the truck was going to leave at 1:00 pm.

Sonic would probably be hiding on the truck or around it, so Tails decided to head for the garage and see if he could find Sonic before it was too late. He hurried down the dark halls as quickly as possible, almost running into a few people who were walking around. Finally, the metal door with _"Parking Garage" _written on it came into view. He pushed it open and stepped into the echoing concrete room. The truck was nearby, smoke spilling out of its tailpipe while the motor softly rumbled. As he started to step towards it, the truck began to move towards the exit.

Sonic's head then popped up from on the roof of the vehicle. When he spotted Tails, he gave a little wave.

"See ya later Tails!" he called out.

Sonic could be speeding off to his death right now, but Tails also didn't want to be alone. The hedgehog was for all intents and purposes the only family Tails had left.

_What do I do then? _

Now the truck was starting to move past the security booth at the front of the garage, out into the street.

_This could be the last time I see Sonic. _

The truck vanished from sight as it rounded the corner. Tails gasped, surprised at how quick the huge truck seemed to be. That gave him even less time to make a decision. He paced back and forth for a moment, going down his options again.

_Stay or go...stay or go... What do I do? This is tough... Why'd you have to leave me here Sonic? Why?_

His mind began to cycle through all the memories he'd had of Sonic, from as early as he could remember on up to recently.

* * *

_  
Tails cried over his desk in his room at home. In front of him was an open box, and the contents of that box littered the desk. The box was a kit to build a remote control car, and it was supposed to look like one once all the parts were built together. The four-year-old fox thought he could handle it, after seeing how easy his mom made it look to build machines, but he was wrong. Now he was crying because he felt like he'd failed his mom, especially since this kit was so expensive._

"_Hey Tails!" Sonic's voice called from the door. "What's wrong?" _

_The ten year old hedgehog stepped forward to the table. _

"_I...I can't do this Sonic..." Tails stammered. "I can't figure it out." _

"_Oh come on Tails! It's not that hard. Let me have a try." _

_Sonic pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. He took a look at the instructions, and then scanned over the parts that Tails had already put together. After a few minutes, he nodded._

"_I see what you did wrong. Look here...you're supposed to put this part 2E into this slot. But this is part 2F."_

_Tails' tears began to dry away, his sadness leaving his voice. _

"_Really? Let me see." _

_He looked at the part. The label on the part was indeed 2F._

"_You're right! I feel like a moron now. I thought the F was an E." _

_Sonic laughed._

"_Hey, it's all right. We all make mistakes."_

"_Yeah, thanks Sonic!"_

"_No problem... Want me to help you out finishing it?" _

"_Sure, let's get started!"  
_

_

* * *

_  
_"Tails, are you ready to try it again?" Sonic said, standing next to the fox in the backyard of the Prower house._

_"Sonic...let me rest..." Tails gasped out._

_"No way! I wanna see you try to fly again!"_

_"Ugh..."_

_About a month and a half ago, Kyle had taken Sonic and Tails on a ride in a helicopter, as a present for Tails' sixth birthday. He'd been half regretting his dad giving him that gift ever since. That had given Sonic the idea of using Tails' twin appendages like the propellers of the helicopter to get him to fly. Well, to their surprise, their little experiment had actually worked. While it was cool that Tails could fly now with his tails, he didn't like at all how Sonic kept pestering him to show off his flying every ten seconds. He thought his tails were going to fall off at this rate._

_"Alright, I'll do it..." Tails muttered._

_"Alright!" Sonic shouted, jumping for joy. "Thanks Tails!"_

_Tails spun his tails around again, just like the rotor on a helicopter. The trimmed blades of grass beneath his feet fanned out from the downdraft as he slowly rose into the air. He rose up about two feet off of the grass, but then collapsed to the ground out of sheer exhaustion._

* * *

_If it weren't for Sonic, I might have never learned about machines or how to fly... _Tails thought. 

The memories kept flowing. Next he thought about what Sonic had said to him after his father had died a few days ago.

* * *

_"But..." Tails said. "Since Mom and Dad are dead, what are we supposed to do now? Who's going to take care of us?"_

_"We'll have to take care of ourselves," Sonic replied._

_"Ourselves?" Tails declared, totally shocked. "We're not old enough to do that!"_

_"I took care of myself loads of times when I was still living with my old dad. I'm talking about Swift, not Kyle. I think I can handle it."_

_"But what about me?" Tails said, pointing to himself._

_"I'll take care of you."_

_"But you're only twelve and a half!"_

_"Kyle asked me to take care of you before we ran away, and that's what I'm going to do Tails. He's counting on me to take care of you."_

_"If Daddy believes in you... I think I believe in you too."_

_

* * *

But he didn't take care of me this time… All he cared about was himself by going after Robotnik. He went back on his promise. But Daddy trusted him... Oh...I don't know what to do. _

Tails frowned, and began to step back towards the entrance into the police station. He turned around and looked back. One last memory crept into his mind, which was the conversation they'd had after recently escaping Robotnik at Mor.

* * *

"_Tails?" Sonic said. _

"_What is it Sonic?" Tails said as he worked._

"_I'm impressed with you."_

_Tails turned around to face him, with a surprised look on his face._

"_Why?" _

"_Remember a few days ago, when we were fighting off the gunmen who were trying to kill Carrie?" _

"_Yeah...they were scary." _

"_Not really, but I noticed you never helped me take them down. You just kind of hid in the back before." _

"_I didn't want to die. I'm too scared of fighting and getting hurt to save people. I wanted to hide."_

"_But you did save my life today. I could have never gotten away from Robotnik without your help. You said that Robotnik was the scariest person ever, and yet you still came out to save me." _

"_I didn't want to die, but I didn't want you to die either. I was more scared of you being gone than Robotnik." _

_Tails gasped and shook his head. _

"_No way...I was scared to death the whole time I was saving you. I don't want to do it again." _

"_I still think I see a hero appearing in you. Maybe the next time both of us could fight Robotnik together. What do you say?"_

_

* * *

Last time I was more scared of Sonic dying than Robotnik, so why is it different this time? This is sort of the same... _

He took another look at the open garage door.

_Oh I give up! I'm going! Hang on Sonic! _

Tails dashed across the concrete floor as fast as he could, and then he twirled his tails behind him as he picked up speed so he could go even faster. Very soon, he had zipped out through the door. He screeched to a halt just outside the door, and looked around the street. Over on the left, he could just barely make out the truck going away from him. It looked like a small gray box at this distance. Before he could get going though, a voice interrupted him.

"Hey bro!" he heard a familiar voice call out.

Tails turned and saw Sonic leaning against the wall next to the garage door, a grin on his face.

"You really think I would have just taken off like that, and left you alone? I would have been breaking my promise to Kyle!"

Tails smiled, extremely happy that his brother hadn't actually run off and left him behind. He ran over and hugged him.

"Oh Sonic, thank you so much!"

"Hey, it's all right," Sonic replied.

Tails looked up at Sonic's face.

"I'll tell you what. I'm only gonna go after Robotnik now if you say it's all right. Well, what do you say then?"

Tails fell silent, and looked down, going into thought. He had just remembered how great everything used to be. Some of those memories he'd just gone over had been proof of that, with how he'd loved living with Sonic for the first six years of his life. And then Robotnik had come and killed his parents, and his world had been turned upside down. He was directly responsible for the position they were in now, and Tails didn't like where he was right now at all. That settled it for him. He looked up at Sonic.

"Yeah Sonic, you can go after Robotnik. In fact, I wanna go with you too!"

Sonic looked surprised, with the way his eyes widened.

"You sure about this? You don't have to go..."

"Hey," Tails said, recalling the last memory. "You said you saw a hero in me. Well, maybe there is one in me. We'll know for sure if I go, right?"

Sonic chucked.

"Yeah, I guess I did say that. Well, yeah, you've got a point. Let's go."

Both of them turned to face the truck. It was only barely visible now. Tails held out his arm, and Sonic grabbed it as firmly as he could.

"Hold on Tails!"

Sonic revved up his feet and zoomed down the street, leaving a trail of fire behind him. Within seconds, they had already caught up to the truck. Sonic went into a long leap, and flew through the air with the greatest of ease. With a clank, they landed on the flat roof of the S.W.A.T. truck. Tails let go of Sonic's arm, and sat down on the roof of the vehicle. Sonic did the same.

It was actually quite pleasant riding up here, what with the wind whistling through their ears and over their fur. Tails rather liked it. Plus it wasn't as crowded as actually sitting inside the truck. They had the entire roof to themselves. Only problem was that this metal roof was freezing cold to sit on, although his body heat warmed it up in short order.

"We'll be there in no time," Tails said.

"Yeah right..." Sonic muttered. He sounded a little edgy. "I could jog faster than this hunk of junk."

Tails giggled a little, at how differently they saw riding on this truck. Amazing how much this whole experience eased his mind. It almost made him forget that they were about to try to sneak in what could be the most heavily guarded military complex on the face of Planet Freedom.

* * *

_Damn... If we were going any slower in this thing, we'd be heading in reverse. I think I just saw a snail pass us. _

The truck was moving at a good clip of 55 MPH, but to Sonic that was barely crawling. They'd been driving at that pace for a good ten minutes, although to Sonic it was like hours. Now though, they were getting out of the city and into the countryside. Sonic looked around, and he recognized this was the road that he and Tails had used to enter Carlboron. They were back on that dark forest road again.

Up ahead was that pileup of cars they had spotted days before, where they had found that green car that they'd used to drive into town. The smoke had died out, but otherwise everything looked the same here. The driver simply drove around the wreck, being careful not to get into any of the craters from the explosions. Very soon, they were around it and on their way.

_Hmm... If we're past the pileup, then Tex and his gas station shouldn't be too far ahead. Should I jump down and tell the cops to pick him up? Heh, nah... Let him fend for himself, just like he forced me and Tails to do. He deserves it after he took all that food away from us. _

Sonic looked ahead down the road again, towards where they were going. Something seemed wrong though.

_Shouldn't we be able to see the Taxago sign by now? Oh well, maybe my memory of the road's just not too good. _

However, as the truck continued on, he noticed that he could see the patch of the pavement on the side of the road up ahead, where the gas station had been before. What's more, an oily patch of smoke was streaking up into the sky. The gas station finally emerged into view.

Well…what was left of it emerged into view. The large Taxago sign had fallen over and smashed to the ground. The canopies had toppled over to the side, while oily smoke streaked up from where the gas pumps had been before. The station itself had been blasted to pieces, with bricks, metal, and whatever else the building had been made of strewn all over the place. The building had been completely destroyed, and there was no sign of Tex anywhere.

"_I hope you burn in hell for this, you greedy old bastard."_

Sonic's words to Tex the last time they had met echoed through his brain. Well, he'd gotten what he'd hoped for, hadn't he? Then why did he feel so rotten inside? Maybe it was because he wasn't actually expecting it to happen. Sonic began to cry.

_I really didn't mean it. I just said that because I was mad. Jeez, even though he was rotten to me and Tails, I didn't actually want him to die. Did I jinx him when I told him to go burn in hell? Please...don't let him be dead just because of what I said. I'd do anything to see him alive again. _

Even though the truck was still moving at that steady pace, it seemed to take forever before the gas station finally passed out of sight. Sonic was sniffling the whole time. As the pavement faded from view, he turned to look at Tails. The fox was crying as well.

"I really didn't want him to die Tails... I didn't mean what I said before," Sonic said.

Tails seemed to remember what Sonic was talking about. He nodded, and then spoke himself.

"It's okay Sonic. You didn't know this would happen."

"I guess you're right Tails. Nothing I could have done."

Sonic wanted to talk a bit more, but this unpleasant surprise had been like a punch in the gut for him. He didn't feel like saying anything else, and Tails seemed to feel the same way. They fell into silence again.


	13. Out of the Frying Pan

**Chapter 13: Out of the Frying Pan...**

**March 21st, 2314 – 12:55 PM – Zerawian Countryside **

Another fifteen minutes later, the truck left the concrete road and turned into the forest. The driver was pulling onto a wide dirt track in the trees. However, a lot of the trees around the track seemed to have been ripped down, as if by a massive physical force. Furthermore, there were huge tracks in this road. Whatever had made them, its wheels or treads were at least three feet wide, and it looked like a lot of them had come through here. What kind of machines could do something like that? Sonic felt like he really didn't want to run into it, whatever it was.

Onward and onward the path winded through the forest. The dirt road was covered with potholes from where trees had been yanked out of the ground to allow the trail to continue. The holes were probably deeper before, but the large amount of machines trampling through here had worn down the earth to the point where the holes weren't so big anymore. However, the truck still bounced up and down over these holes in the road quite a bit, making it difficult for Sonic and Tails to keep from falling off of the roof. After about ten more minutes of these bumps, the truck came to a halt. Sonic turned around to see why the truck had stopped, and his mouth fell open in awe.

The truck had come to rest on a rise of a hill, which gave it a great view of a large military base about a mile on up ahead. Calling it "large" could be inadequate though. The thing was built into a mountain in the distance, and even from here it looked gigantic. A control tower of sorts sprouted out of the peak, while artillery cannons were situated at various positions along the cliffs and slopes. At the base of the mountain and along cliffs, large metal doors could be seen, which were probably used to allow vehicles like tanks and aircraft to enter and exit. The base looked all but invincible.

Sonic actually gulped a bit, feeling doubts in his plan to avenge Kyle's death for the first time. It looked like this wasn't going to be as easy as he thought. If that was the outside of the base, who knew what was waiting on the inside?

However, the truck gave a sudden lurch and started down the path again. After it had driven forward about half a mile, it pulled off of the dirt trail and into a place in the trees where it was less visible. The engine switched off, and for the first time Sonic could hear other sounds inside the truck. There was the sound of men talking to each other, and the rattling of metal as they checked their weapons. Finally, there was a series of clicks as the doors opened and the policemen got out. Sonic and Tails ducked down on the roof, so they wouldn't be seen.

"All right everyone..." Sonic heard Zack say. "We're going to have to walk from here. We can't risk driving any closer, because they might spot this truck. Anyway, stay close and follow me to the refuse dump. That's our entry point."

Sonic then heard some blips and beeps, followed by a high-pitched whine. The whine died out quickly though. Sonic peeked out from the roof of the truck, and saw that Zack was holding his motion detector with a confused look on his face.

"This is odd...I'm getting a reading right next to us...on top of the truck."

Sonic's eyes popped open and he ducked back to hide.

"You sure?" one of the cops asked.

"I dunno...it might just be a glitch in the machine. I'll go up and have a look though."

_Dammit! I forgot about his motion detector. Now he's gonna see us! _

Sonic considered running for it with Tails, but why bother? Zack would just find them again since he still had his motion sensor. A few seconds later, the bobcat's head poked up from above the roof. As he saw Sonic and Tails, he got a confused look on his face, but then it quickly faded to annoyance.

"Hey...what are you two doing here?" he asked, a big amount of irritation in his voice.

"We…erm…well…" Sonic started. He doubted Zack would take well to him saying 'Oh, I wanted to go kill Robotnik. That's all.'

"Never mind...I don't care what it is."

Zack turned back to look at the ground.

"At ease men...it's just the two kids we found the other day."

"Those kids?" Dr. Skeleck asked. "Why would they come along? This is no place for a child!"

The cop turned to face them again.

"Anyway, come on down off of the roof."

Sonic and Tails obeyed, jumping down to the ground. They walked over to the back of the truck, where Zack had opened up the door. He gave them a hardened gaze.

"Well, I don't know why you came with us, but I certainly can't bring you into the base. I'm afraid you're going to have to stay in here until the operation is over."

"Excellent idea Zack," Dr. Skeleck voiced. "Best idea you've had all day."

Zack looked at the doctor, and then looked back at the two kids before he nodded towards the inside of the truck.

"Aww come on! Can't you let us come with you?" Sonic begged. "We survived Robotnik before!"

"I don't care..." Zack replied, as he moved closer to the two and stood over them. "Just because you got lucky once doesn't mean you'll get lucky again this time. Now get in the truck."

"Please let us go!" Tails said, practically crying out in his request.

Sonic looked at Tails, surprised that he was this determined to go after Robotnik, when only a few hours before he would have never done it for anything.

"No," Zack firmly stated. This time he grabbed Sonic and Tails, easily picking them up with his muscular arms. He set them down inside the back of the truck. "Now stay in here and don't make a fuss."

Then Zack closed the doors in their face, and then there was a click as the door locked.

_Well…dammit…what do we do now? _

"Keep an eye on the truck Samuel," Zack said, his voice muffled a bit by the metal walls of the vehicle. "Don't let those kids out."

"Yes sir!" Samuel said back. Sonic recognized his voice as belonging to the tiger that had been in the van when they brought them to the station the first time.

"All right men...let's move out!" Zack yelled.

Following that was the sound of feet trampling across the ground, as well as the sound of crinkling leaves on the ground and snapping twigs. Within a minute or so though, the sounds were virtually inaudible.

As the noises finally vanished, Tails whispered, "What do we do now Sonic?"

"I dunno Tails..." Sonic whispered back.

The hedgehog started looking around the inside of the truck, trying to think of some way they could get out. The back compartment of the truck had no windows, and all of the walls were made of steel.

"Hey Sonic," Tails whispered.

Sonic looked at him, and Tails was pointing at the ceiling. The hedgehog looked up and saw there was a hatch in the roof. Sonic nodded to Tails, and climbed up on top of a bench next to the hatch. It was then that he noticed the thing was locked with a padlock. He could just grab the thing in his hand, although there was still the problem of getting it off the latch.

_Hmm…maybe I can do what I did back at the station with the ventilation cover. _

Sonic pulled another quill out of his back, and used it to slice the padlock in half. While he grabbed one side of the lock in his hand, the other was falling to the floor. However, with his super speed, Sonic managed to reach down and grab it before it could hit the floor.

"Whew..."

"Close one," Tails whispered. "That would have made a big racket."

Sonic nodded, and set both halves down on a bench, wincing at the clanking sound they made. He then reached up again to open the hatch. However, as he started to push it open, it made a loud creaking noise.

"Hey!" Samuel yelled from outside. "What are ya'll doing in there? You're making a racket!"

"Ahhhh...nothing!" Sonic yelled back.

"Well whatever it is, stop it!"

Feeling defeated, Sonic jumped back down and sat on the bench. He let out a sigh.

"Great...that hatch is too squeaky. If we try to open it he'll hear us. Any ideas Tails?"

"Well...not really."

"Fantastic..."

Sonic and Tails sat next to each other on the bench in the truck for a few minutes, both of them pondering a way they could open the hatch in the roof without alerting the guard outside. Not like there was much to work with in here. There was the empty gun rack at the front of the truck, the two halves of the padlock, the benches, and that was about it.

Suddenly, Tails pulled Sonic's arm.

"What is it Tails?"

"Listen..."

Sonic stopped talking and listened, but he couldn't hear anything.

"I don't hear anything. My ears aren't as good as yours, remember?"

"Just listen a little bit longer..."

"Well, all right."

As Sonic started listening again, he heard it. It was a low droning sound, and it was difficult to make out what it was supposed to be at this distance. However, it was quickly getting louder. After a moment or two, Sonic understood what it was. They were loud jet engines; most likely they were from Robotnik's aircraft.

"We can use the noise for cover," Tails whispered.

"Huh?" Sonic whispered back.

"We open the hatch when the jets pass over us. By then, the engines will be making so much noise that the guard won't be able to hear the hatch opening."

"Great thinking," Sonic said with a smile.

"Thanks, but get ready to open it when they get close."

Sonic nodded, and jumped up onto the bench so he could reach the hatch. After another moment, the jet noise had turned to a dull roar. Sonic gently pushed the hatch open, trying to minimize the noise. The jets were loud, but not that loud. Finally, he'd managed to make a big enough opening for them to slip out, and just in time. The noise of the aircraft was now fading out. Sonic clambered up onto the roof as silently as possible, with Tails following behind him. The engine noise had just finished subsiding.

"I'll fly us out of here," Tails whispered.

"Good idea...your tails won't make a lot of noise."

Sonic grabbed a hold of Tails' hands, while the fox started twisting his tails. Within the next few seconds, they were on their way, flying above the treetops. Up ahead was Robotnik's fortress. It looked even bigger and more intimidating than it had been when they'd seen it the last time. Sonic could hardly believe Robotnik had enough resources to make something like this.

"Hey Sonic..." Tails said. "I think I can see the dump they were talking about from here!"

"Where?"

"It's on the right side of the base."

Sonic twisted his head to look, and saw what Tails was talking about. It wasn't that hard to spot from here, since bright orange lights lit the thing up for miles to see. Underneath the lights were massive piles of refuse. Most of it looked like bits and pieces of metal, in addition to various metal drums and containers. There was even a few scrapped aircraft and other vehicles out there.

Sonic also saw the big trucks Zack had been talking about before down there. These were huge hulking things, with beds that were nearly as long as a football field. They first appeared from a garage door at the foot of the mountain base, drove out to a location in the dump, and tilted their beds to the side to drop off their load. Then they headed back to another garage door to reenter the base and get another load.

Also like Zack had been talking about, the area was lightly guarded. There were a handful of robot soldiers here and there, but they looked like they wouldn't be too hard to sneak past.

"All right Tails...here's what we gotta do. Zack said we need to get on one of those trucks, and let it take us inside the base."

"Got it Sonic, but what about guards?"

"Hmm...how about this? We dive towards one of the trucks really fast so they don't have time to spot us. Then we pull up at the last second to land."

"Well, okay... Are you ready?"

"Sure am...let's do it."

"All right, hold on."

Tails tipped down and dived towards the nearest flatbed truck he could see. It looked tiny at this distance, but it was growing larger at a frightening speed. The wind whipped past the two of them, flapping their fur around. Still though, Tails didn't slow down. At the last possible second, Tails pulled up. Sonic landed with a hard bump on the metal bed, and dropped to his knees. The impact had hurt a bit, but the pain would fade soon. Tails landed with a hard thump right next to him, but had fallen on his belly instead.

"Ow!" Tails cried. "I messed up!"

"Nah, you did fine," Sonic said, helping him up.

The truck was now approaching the door that would take them and it inside the base. Beyond the door was nothing but pitch black darkness. They had just crossed over the threshold, and were starting into the dark.

"Well, that was the easy part," Sonic said. As the darkness replaced the light and washed over their bodies, he added, "Now we're heading right into the fire."


	14. Infiltration

**Chapter 14: Infiltration **

**March 21st, 2314 – 1:15 PM – Robotnik's Base **

The truck rumbled on through the darkness. The narrow corridors of the tunnel caused the noise from the machine's engine to echo off the walls, giving Sonic a supreme headache. As Sonic covered his ears to block out the noise, he really hoped they wouldn't have to ride on this thing for much longer. Fortunately, lights glared at them from on up ahead, so the tunnel seemed to be coming to an end.

As they entered the chamber with the bright lights, Sonic saw walls made of steel, in addition to a floor area full of piles of scrapped metal and other garbage. With fascination, he watched all the activity in the room as the truck trudged onward through the place. He had never seen anything like this place before in his life. Automated bulldozers with big shovels pushed junk around, forming it into piles. Loud machinery whirred and whistled all around, spewing clouds of smoke into the air. Sonic was in awe with of much activity there was in this place, and with how big it was.

The truck suddenly screeched to a halt, nearly knocking Sonic and Tails off their feet.

"Why'd it stop?" Tails asked.

Sonic was about to say 'I dunno', when he suddenly thought of the most obvious answer. The truck was stopping to collect a new load of refuse. He then noticed they had parked to the left of a tall ledge. Up at the top of that ledge was a big container full of a new load of refuse, and it looked to be designed to tip over to dump its cargo out. Even as Sonic started to move, the container began to slant over.

"Grab on Tails!" Sonic screamed.

Tails certainly didn't need to be told twice. Tails snatched Sonic's arm, while metal began raining down all around them. As the hedgehog dashed off the truck with Tails in tow, the rest of the new load of refuse crashed down in the spot where they had been standing only a second before. The noise of metal clashing against metal drowned out the small thump that the pair made as they landed on the floor.

"Phew...close one..." Sonic said, gasping for breath.

Sonic and Tails stood up and dusted themselves off.

"So…we're in the base now Sonic," Tails said. "What do we do now?"

"Erm...gee...that's a good question Tails."

When Sonic couldn't think of a good reply, he started to feel a little afraid. He realized he hadn't thought out this whole plan to kill Robotnik very well. Sonic glanced over at Tails, a worried look crossing over the hedgehog's face.

"What's wrong Sonic?"

"I screwed up...I didn't think this plan out good enough."

"What do you mean?"

"We've got no idea where Robotnik is in this base, or even what the layout of it is. Even if his army wasn't around, it would be almost impossible to find him here."

"I guess you're right Sonic," Tails said, his ears folding down. However, they shot up again. "Hey though...at least we can go help out Zack so he can save the prisoners."

"Hmm..." Sonic said. A smile crossed his face. "Well I guess that's not as good as killing Robotnik, but I'd be glad to keep all those people from getting killed. Let's go."

"But Sonic…how are we gonna find Zack?"

"Well, he couldn't have come in here much earlier than us, so maybe he's still close by. What do you say we fly up and see if we can spot him from the air?"

"All right. Grab my arm then."

Sonic grabbed Tails' arm, and the young kit twisted his tails. Soon, the two were floating up near the roof of the room, scanning for Zack and the others.

"Hey, I see 'em!" Tails suddenly said. "Over there, on the other side of the room!"

Sonic glanced towards that area. He just barely could make them out at this distance, but he saw them going through a doorway on the opposite end of the room. They were almost the size of ants from here, but Sonic could still identify Zack and his cops by their black uniforms, and Dr. Skeleck by his white coat.

"Let's get after them then Tails!" Sonic said.

"But Sonic… What if they see us?" Tails asked back.

"Oh it doesn't matter now, I think. Even if Zack knows we're here, it would be too dangerous for him to have somebody take us back outside."

"Well, I guess that makes sense. Hold on then."

For the second time in the last several minutes, Tails did a dive bomb maneuver towards the ground. This time he aimed for the doorway the cops had gone through a moment before. However, this time Tails pulled up in time, letting Sonic go. Sonic easily landed on his feet, and Tails came down next to him without a hitch. They were now at the doorway, which opened into a sterile metal corridor. Nothing decorated the corridor at all, unless you counted the fluorescent lights and pipes in the ceiling. It felt like a dead place...with no warmth in it at all.

Sonic silently wished to leave this place as soon as possible, after their objective had been accomplished. In the distance, Sonic heard the faint echoes of boots on metal.

"I hear them," Tails said.

"Me too," Sonic said back. "Let's hurry and catch up to them."

Sonic and Tails ran down the corridor, trying to catch up with the police.

As they got closer, they heard Zack shout, "Hey...we've got something incoming! Get ready!"

Sonic waved a hand to signal for Tails to stop, and whispered, "Wait here... I'll go talk to them first and calm them down."

As Sonic stepped around the next corner, several bullets ricocheted off the wall next to him. He ducked back around the corner, avoiding the bullets. Several more shots were fired, but they quickly ceased. The corridor was now deathly quiet. Sonic let out a sigh.

_Guess we should have been more careful in letting them know we're here. _

Slow, rapid footsteps approached the corner, but they stopped just short of the edge. A mirror on a metal pole then poked out from around the corner. In the mirror, Sonic could see Zack's hardened eyes look at him. However, the bobcat's expression quickly changed to a look of surprise, followed by anger. Zack himself then stepped around the corner to look at them.

"Don't shoot fellas," Zack said, waving an arm back at the others down the hall. "It's just the kids again."

Sonic heard deep sighs of relief around the corner, followed by the sound of rifles clicking as their owners lowered them into relaxed positions. Zack motioned with his hand for them to follow him, and then he stepped back around the corner. Sonic and Tails followed him.

"You just don't give up, do you?" Zack muttered, slipping the tactical mirror back into his utility belt. "Well, it's too late now to send you back now, so I guess you're stuck with us."

"Great!" Sonic said with a smile.

"Oh yeah...you'll see how great it is once we get back to the station," Zack muttered. "You're lucky I don't break your leg again to stop you from pulling crap like this."

"I wouldn't mind you doing that either," Dr. Skeleck said. His arms folded across his chest as he stood with the other cops. "He'd get in a lot less trouble that way."

The doctor then turned around, looking about the corridor.

"I think this is the way to the prison complex," the doctor said, pointing down the hall. "I've been taken down this hallway a few times before."

"All right, good," Zack said back, the yellow bobcat walking over Dr. Skeleck. "Let's get a move on then." Turning back to face Sonic and Tails, he said, "You two stay in the middle of us. We can't let you get in any danger."

"Aww..." Sonic muttered. "I wanted to go fight stuff, not get baby guarded."

The group silently walked down the corridors, as they kept an eye out for danger. The tension was so thick in the air around them it could be cut with a knife. Occasionally, they'd pass a window that would let them look out over a larger room, which was typically full of smelting pits. Maybe Robotnik made metal to build his military here. The area seemed lightly guarded though. Only a handful of guards seemed to be patrolling down here, and even then they'd been easy enough to sneak past.

After about fifteen more minutes of walking around, the group came to a stairwell that led further down to lower levels. Darkness shrouded the bottom of the stairs, not allowing anyone to see what was waiting down there.

"Well doctor?" Zack asked. "Are we on the right trail?"

Dr. Skeleck stepped forward and gazed down into the thick shadows.

"Yes...we are. These stairs will take us to the prison area," he answered, turning around to face the group.

"Do you remember what's down there?" Zack asked.

"Not really... They always keep the lights off down there, I couldn't see much because of it."

"All right then, we'll have to proceed a little more carefully from here," Zack said, as he turned to face the group. "Everyone slow down your pace. We don't want to walk into a trap."

* * *

Zack took point as he walked down the stairs. The other cops followed him, with Sonic, Tails, and Dr. Skeleck towards the rear. The further they got away from the stairs, the darker the place became. However, a dim light at the far end of the passage was shining at them. It hung on the wall above a door, revealing the exit. Some of the policemen turned on their flash lights, and shone them around to keep an eye on things. There didn't seem to be much to look at in the hall though, apart from exposed pipes and ductwork in the ceiling. 

Even so, Tails shook violently in fear. He absolutely hated dark places, and this one was no different. Even as bad as the Land of Darkness was in general, it was nothing compared to this place. Not to mention, he got the feeling that they were being watched, and that anyone or anything could just jump out of the blackness and surprise them.

In fact, right now, he heard a strange whispering sound behind him, and turned to look. There was nothing there though, apart from the stairs at the other end of the hall. The whispering noise continued, but he still couldn't see a thing. What was making that noise? He was sure he didn't hear it a few moments ago. Finally, Tails just shook his head and told himself it was his imagination, his hyper-sensitive ears, or probably both. There wasn't anything there, and his eyes proved it.

Turning back, he realized they were nearly at the door to the next room. Up close, the door looked very strong...maybe about as strong as a bank vault. It even had a rotating handle on the middle like a vault. Zack stepped up to the handle, and tried to turn it. It looked like it wasn't budging. Even when he started straining with all of his might, he couldn't get it to move.

"It's no good..." Zack said. "This door just isn't going to open without a key. We'd have better luck getting through a wall."

"What about that big gun of yours?" Dr. Skeleck asked. "It's an anti-tank gun right? Well why not put it to use?"

"Because when I fire it, it'll be like an explosion. We don't need to be making that kind of sound, because it would draw a lot of attention."

"So what now then?" Sonic said.

"Well, there's not a lot we can do. I can see a card reader here, but the card could be anywhere, and it's too dangerous to go searching for it. Even if Robo's army wasn't here, we could be looking for days in this place just to find it."

"We just give up?" Tails said, sounding shocked.

"Well, I'm afraid so Tails," Zack said. "That is, unless you know some kind of magical way of opening this door, like saying _Abracadabra_._" _

Zack then gasped as he heard the door opening behind him, and whirled around with his gun at the read. Everyone else who had a gun did the same. A blinding white light on the other side of the door poured into the black corridor, almost blinding Tails. Finally, with a thump, the door stopped opening. As Tails' eyes adjusted, he began to make the next corridor.

It looked completely empty, except this time the theme of the room was quite different. Instead of just plain metal and such, the room's walls, floors, and ceiling were all made of glass. On the other side of the glass was an array of fluorescent lights over a reflective mirror, which was why so much light was hitting them as the door opened. It was without a doubt the most surprising thing Tails had seen since they'd gotten in here. He'd been expecting to see something like another plain metal hallway.

Then something surprised him even more. At the other end of the glass hallway, he could see the next door opening. It was like the whole place was just opening up for them.

As the second door stopped moving and thumped to a stop, there was silence again. Everyone stood rooted to their spots for a couple of minutes, not moving or saying a word. However, Zack soon lowered his rifle and relaxed a bit as he stood up straight.

"I can't believe that word actually worked..." Zack said.

"Oh use some common sense you brute!" Dr. Skeleck called out. "It's probably a trap! That's why it opened up for you! Robotnik knows we're here now. I'm sure of it!"

"Maybe...but even with what I said in the briefing, I don't wanna give up on those prisoners when we're so close," Zack said back. "This is the only way into the prison, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's right. But I'd suggest turning back. The guards always had to use a keycard to open that door."

Zack took another good look at the hallway.

"I don't see anything that looks dangerous. Do any of you?"

There was a general murmuring of agreement with Zack.

"Tell you what everybody...I'll take point again, and when I reach the next door, you can follow me. If there's anything dangerous, I'll probably spot it. Sound good?"

The others nodded, while Dr. Skeleck just folded his arms and snorted, as his face took on a 'you'll-be-sorry-for-not-listening-to-me' look. Zack entered the corridor...moving one step at a time down the brightly lit passageway. It took him at least a few minutes to reach the other end of the hall, with how slow he was going. Sonic seemed to be getting antsy about watching him take his sweet time like that.

However, he finally reached the door at the other end without any mishaps. The bobcat then turned around and waved for them to move up. Everybody else in the group moved forward, with Dr. Skeleck and Tails bringing up the rear.

"I'm going to regret this," the bat doctor muttered.

As the last of the cops stepped in, the door they'd just walked through slammed closed. Then the door at the other end of the hall slammed closed too. Next, Tails heard a whirring noise getting louder, as if something in the room was charging up. Everyone looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, a bright flash of light blinded Tails. When he was able to see again, he saw that it was a laser coming out of the wall...and it had already slashed two cops in half as it sliced across the hallway.


	15. Deathtrap

**Chapter 15: Deathtrap **

**March 21st, 2314 – 2:00 PM – Robotnik's Base **

Dr. Skeleck screamed bloody murder, as Tails watched in numb disbelief as the officers' corpses collapsed to the ground. The laser had vanished, but Tails hardly noticed, his face going white from shock at seeing the dead bodies before him. He had thought that watching the kids at the school get shot in Mor had been horrible, as was the dead tabby cat on the highway on the way to Carlboron. However, seeing someone meet such a brutal end right before his eyes was a hundred times worse. Tails thought he'd pass out from shock for a moment, but he managed to keep from fainting. It took an extreme effort just to hold back the vomit though.

Just as he thought he'd stabilized his stomach, a second flash of light burst forth from the wall. Now a laser beam was flashing towards him and Sonic. However, before he could move to dodge it, Sonic had already grabbed his arm and jumped. The beam cut through the air where their ankles had been only a moment before.

After they landed, Tails heard some whimpering in the room. He looked back and saw Dr. Skeleck murmuring gibberish to himself, as he was curled up into a ball in the corner of the room. Once again, a flash of light appeared. This time, the laser targeted the doctor. Sonic temporarily dropped Tails and picked up the doctor, jumping so that the laser just missed his feet.

They'd managed to live through three of the laser beam attacks so far, but Tails knew they couldn't keep doing this forever. The fox rushed to the door next to where Dr. Skeleck had been curled up before, and tried open it. The door didn't even rattle as he pounded on it, with how solidly armored and secure it was.

"The doors are both locked!" Zack screamed from the other end of the hall. "We're trapped!"

Tails felt himself going even whiter than his muzzle and belly fur. They were stuck in this deathtrap hallway, and two people out of their group of thirteen were already dead. At this rate they'd all be killed within five minutes.

Once again, the laser beam came out of the wall and targeted someone in the hallway. This time, it came towards Tails. He just barely managed to duck under it, and felt the heat of it as it whizzed across the tips of his ears. The bright blue light of the beam made it hard to see anything with how close it had gotten to his eyes. He tried to relax, and think of some way out of this, but too much of his energy was already dedicated to simply staying alive.

Zack pulled up his anti-tank gun and aimed it at the door he was standing next to. He fired one shot, the gun sounding like a gigantic cannon in this tiny room. However, when Tails saw the damage that had been done to the door, he couldn't believe it. Even though the gun was designed to shoot through tank armor, it scarcely made a dent in the door. Another beam sliced across the hallway, cutting a cop's head off. His body soon fell to the floor following the head. Now they were down to ten people, Tails himself included.

_It's so hard to believe that a beam of light can kill people like that._

On the tail end of that thought, he thought of something.

_Wait...a laser is basically a very intense beam of light. It's just like any other kind of light. That means that this laser can be bounced off of a reflective surface._

Noting how easily the laser was able to cut through almost anything, he got an idea.

_Maybe we can reflect the laser somehow at one of the doors. It would cut a hole in the door to let us out. Zack's got that mirror..._

After the next laser strike, Tails called out to Zack.

"Zack! Give me your mirror!"

"What!" Zack called from the other end of the room. "Why!"

"We can use it to reflect the laser so it will cut open the door!"

"Sounds like a good idea to me!" Zack shouted as he pulled out his mirror by its handle. "Here! Catch!"

Zack threw the tactical mirror across the hallway. As it flew over towards Tails though, the handle was cut off, leaving only the mirror itself. He dived forward to catch the mirror before it hit the ground. If it broke, they were dead.

Fortunately, Tails caught it easily, right before it hit the floor. Now all he had to do was catch the laser in the mirror. Then, he realized how dangerous this plan was. He'd have to hold the mirror in his hand while he did this. That meant that if he were even slightly off in intercepting the beam, the laser could slash through his hand or his arm, and cut it off as easily as if it were made of butter.

However, he shrugged off the worries a second later.

_Well we'll all die if I don't do it anyway. Best just do it now, before someone else dies._

Holding out the mirror, Tails prepared for the next beam to appear. When the fox saw another bright flash of light appear from the wall, he held out the mirror. Lucky for him though, this time the beam focused towards him. The laser struck against the mirror, and Tails felt himself being pushed back a bit. He closed his eyes reflexively in fear. However, as he opened them, he realized his plan was working. The laser was reflecting off of the mirror and hitting one of the mirror walls.

Grinning, Tails repositioned himself and the mirror very carefully, being careful not to lose the beam. He focused the reflection towards the door Zack was standing next to, and the beam began to eat into the metal almost instantly. That place where it hit the door glowed bright red, then orange, and then white as the metal started to liquefy. He then guided the beam so that it made a hole in the door. The fox successfully managed to make a round circle in the door. The circle then toppled out into the corridor, leaving an exit. It was big enough for an adult to easily slip through.

"Good work Tails!" Zack yelled to him.

Tails smiled.

"Yeah! Great job!" Sonic said too. "Now let's hurry up and get out of here!"

Zack dived through the hole as fast as he could, being careful not to burn himself on the hot metal. The other cops then started running for the hole as well, but another one of them was cut down as the laser continued to seek targets. It was amazing how fast the other five cops managed to get through. Sonic jumped through as well, slipping through easily due to his small size.

Tails was about to go, when he realized he hadn't seen Dr. Skeleck go through the hole yet. He turned around to spot the doctor still cowering in the corner at the other end of the hall. Without thinking, Tails ran back, and shook Dr. Skeleck as hard as he could, trying to make him get up.

"Come on Mr. Skeleck! We gotta get out of here or we're gonna die!"

Dr. Skeleck looked up, and then he ducked again as a laser sliced across where his head was a second ago. That got him up and going, as he rapidly jumped to his feet. The two of them dashed side by side down the hallway, the laser beams trying to cut them down. Sonic and the others were on the other side of the hole in the door, yelling at them to hurry up.

"Come on! Move it!" Sonic yelled.

"Hurry or you'll be chopped to bits!" Zack screamed.

When they reached the door, Tails turned to the bat.

"You go first!" he shouted.

Skeleck didn't need to be told twice as he leaped through the hole. Tails quickly followed after him, wincing as his skin brushed across the cooling but still quite hot metal. However, within a moment he was safe on the other side. A hand grabbed him and helped pick him up. He saw that it was Sonic.

"Thanks..." Tails said.

"Anytime Tails," Sonic said back.

Someone else gave him a pat on the back, and the fox turned around to see Skeleck.

"Thank you so much. I would have died if it weren't for you. I owe you my life."

Tails smiled, but then it faded away into sadness. He looked back at the hole in the door they'd just come through. The place was littered with the pieces of dead cops all over the place. Many of them had been slashed in half or had their heads taken off. Red blood pooled all over the reflective mirrors. Zack was looking through the hole too.

"May their sacrifices not be in vain," the bobcat said. He then turned to address the group. "Come on…we gotta save the prisoners!"

"But Robotnik must know we're here now..." one of the surviving cops said.

"Yeah? Well our only escape route is through there," Zack said as he pointed at the hallway they'd just gone through. "I'm sure you don't wanna go in there again. Our only choice to stay alive anyway is to keep heading forward and see if we can find an alternate way out of the base. So let's go on then."

They turned down the next corridor, which was much shorter. It ended with a less secure door marked "_Main Prison Complex"_. Apparently, that laser hallway was supposed to be the only defense.

"Why didn't you tell us about the laser hall?" Zack asked Skeleck.

"Maybe because that's the first time I've seen it turned on," the doctor retorted. "They must only power it up for intruders."

"I hope that's the last time we have to deal with one of those. It killed four of my men. I'll tell you, I'd love to go after Robotnik right now if we weren't so underpowered right now."

"I think I'd be right behind you Zack in taking on Robotnik, actually."

"What the--! Where did that come from? I thought you never wanted to come to this place."

"After seeing Robotnik's laser invention back there kill four of your men, I realize I want to stop him too. He shouldn't be able to thoughtlessly kill people that quickly. I mean, I saw some of my doctor friends die firsthand too, but that only encouraged me to run farther away. This time though, I want to help stop him. I never want to have to see people die in war like that again."

Zack smiled and let out a laugh.

"It would be good having you behind me; although you might wanna get some training first. You don't have what it takes yet for doing things like this."

"I can learn...I had to learn really hard to get through medical school after all to get my job. I can do it again."

"Being a doctor earns you a lot of money, like over 100,000 demens a year right? Meanwhile cops only earn chump change compared to that. You sure you'd wanna give up your money for something like what we're doing now?"

"Sure…why not? I've got enough money from my job already to last me the rest of my life."

Finally, they arrived at the door.

"Well," Zack said. "Let's see how many Robo's got in here..."

* * *

As the door opened, bright light spilled into the room they were in. Instead of another hallway though, this time large, open chamber greeted them, with the ceiling was six stories overhead. Meanwhile, with the exception of the front area of the room, the side walls were lined with cell after cell of sleeping prisoners. Each small cell occupied no less than ten people. Most had twenty. There would have to be thousands of prisoners in this place. Even so, little thought appeared to have been given to the creature comforts of these people.

They all slept on the floor, without mats or any sort of bedding. It also appeared they were dressed in whatever they happened to be wearing when they were captured. Some wore casual street wear, while others had on wearing expensive suits. Still others turned up with fast food employee uniforms, and even people in swimming suits could be spotted too. It was like a cross section of Freedomian society.

Twenty uncovered shower stalls and about twenty uncovered toilets were lined up across the back wall. These could never keep up with the demand from amount of people in this room. Catwalks serviced the upper cells, but they looked like they'd fall down at any moment with how sloppily constructed they were. Lots of various types of stains covered the walls, and puddles of water collected on the floor from the leaky ceiling. Nearly every surface of the room was either harsh metal, or rough concrete.

"My God..." Dr. Skeleck said, breaking the silence. "What a wretched, unsanitary place to have been thrown into."

"And even after you get out of here," Zack said, joining in. "All you have to look forward to is being a mindless robotic slave."

"Enough talking..." Sonic said. "What do you say we just free them already and get them out of here?"

"Heh, the kid's right," Zack said, walking over to the nearest cell. "We didn't come here to just look around."

"I gotta wonder though..." Dr. Skeleck said. "Now that we've got all the prisoners, how are we going to get all of them out of the base?"

"I dunno...that's a good question... I guess we could also go looking for an armory or something... We could get some of these guys equipped with guns so they could help us fight our way out."

Meanwhile, all of the talking had awoken some of the prisoners in the room. Yawns rang out across the room, as faces appeared at the bars to look at the newcomers. When they saw Zack and the other cops, these prisoners in turn started waking up the other prisoners:

"Hey kids! Wake up! The rescuers are here at last!"

"Mom, Dad! Get up! We're about to be set free!"

"Come on man, wake up! You don't wanna get left behind do you?"

As more people started waking up, they started screaming at Zack and his gang for help:

"Please! Open up our cell! We've been locked up in here for days!"

"Help us goddammit, before more of us get carted off to the roboticizer!"

"Get us outta here! They could come back any time!"

Soon, the yelling reached headache-inducing levels, from all the people simultaneously screaming for help. If Robotnik hadn't known they were in here before, he would now. Zack quickly barked out orders.

"All right men... It looks like these cells are just closed with nothing but simple barred doors and metal padlocks. We can probably shoot off the locks and such with our guns, so there's no need to go looking for keys. Just be careful that the bullets don't ricochet and hit somebody. Now, let's go get to work!"

Two of the officers took one side of the room, while the other two officers took the other side. Very soon, gunshots started ringing out, followed by the jangling of metal as locks were shot off of the cell doors. People started streaming out of the cells and into the center area. Luckily for the officers, they had the common sense to stay put and not just run off into the base. That would get them killed very quickly. Most were probably too afraid to go off on their own, and looked like they wanted instructions first.

"Everything's going good so far!" Tails said.

"Sure is Tails!" Sonic said back.

"This is only the easy part," Zack said in a stern voice. "I just don't see how we can get all of these people out of the base. There's too many. Even if we arm them, they'd have to walk out. Our truck can't seat near enough people. We didn't count on this many—URGH!"

Zack suddenly screamed out in pain as he fell to his knees. Sonic turned to look at Zack as he started screaming. He appeared to be gasping for breath. Upon closer inspection, Sonic could see a small bloody hole in the back of his neck. Blood spilled out of it, trickling down his uniform and pattering on the floor.

Seeing that the wound was in his back, Sonic instinctively looked at the space behind Zack. There was an odd whispering noise, and he could see blood dripping off of a needle hovering in midair.

_In midair? How is that possible?_

"Aaaaaaah!" Dr. Skeleck screamed. "It's that thing that captured me at my house! It's invisible!"


	16. Jailbreak

**Chapter 16: Jailbreak **

**March 21st, 2314 – 2:20 PM – Robotnik's Base **

After hearing Skeleck's words, Sonic looked at the needle again. He could see a faint outline of the robot next to the needle, although he wouldn't have known it was there if he hadn't been looking for it. Looking around, the hedgehog noticed a splotch of mud in a puddle on the floor near him. Picking it up, he hurled it at the thing. With a splat, mud covered its invisible body and revealed its shape.

To Sonic, it looked kind of like a floating cylinder. Two small robotic eyes peeped out from the top of the cylinder. Meanwhile, quiet hover units on the bottom of the machine allowed it to float along with an almost silent whispering sound. Two arms extended from either side of the cylinder, both of them tipped with syringes full of the knockout solution Skeleck and Zack had been victims of.

"That's what was making the whispering noise I heard before we got to the laser hall!" Tails said. "I knew I heard something back there!"

"Oh no! I can see more of them!" Skeleck shouted, pointing a trembling finger at the area behind Zack.

As more people saw what Dr. Skeleck yelling about, they started gasping in horror too. Sonic looked, and he could see more outlines of the robots. There appeared to be about six or seven total.

"I see you," Sonic said with a grin.

In a flash, he started revving up on the ground with his spin dash, and then catapulted himself towards the machines. While they were invisible, Robotnik didn't think much about their durability. Sonic easily hit three of them on his first pass through them, and they were blown to pieces by the impacts. Metal shrapnel rained down, scattering at Sonic's feet.

_They may be invisible, but otherwise they're pansies. I was expecting more out of them. _

There were still four left though, counting the one he'd splattered with mud. Luckily for Sonic, the three that were still invisible appeared to be lined up, making them ripe for another spin dash attack. With another quick burst of speed, he rolled right through all of them, sending them crashing into the walls.

Now there was only one left.

"Time to finish this!" Sonic shouted, preparing to launch himself at the remaining bot.

He didn't get the chance to do that though. A crowd of heavily armed robotic soldiers suddenly appeared from the entrance door and trampled over the invisible robot without a second thought. Each one of them clanked along in heavy, blue-colored armor, and all of them had large blaster rifles in their hands.

They swarmed into the room so quickly that Sonic didn't have time to blink. As soon as they had taken up positions, they began firing into the crowd of prisoners. People screamed and yelled, some getting shot and then falling to the floor. Those that managed to keep from getting hit jumped back inside the prison cells to seek cover. Sonic and Tails ran into the nearest cell with them.

Looking back out into the middle of the room, the scene was horrible to witness. Those that had been unlucky enough to get hit lay in the middle of the floor, cradling their new wounds and screaming out in pain. Zack was out there too, and he had gone fully unconscious. Thankfully, the robots did not fire upon the downed targets.

On the other hand, Sonic's ears picked up the sounds of the robots' metal feet marching forward, in perfect synchronicity. Within a few seconds, the robots would be in front of the prison cells, and then they'd have clear shots again. Sonic watched the open cell door, waiting for the soldiers to appear. He steeled himself, preparing to leap into the crowd of bots when they appeared. He'd most likely die, but at least he could give the prisoners an opening to escape.

Before Sonic jumped though, he noticed one of the cops, a dingo, was in a cell on the other side of the room. The dingo pulled a small black object out of his pocket, a hand grenade He started to reach for the pin. Before he pulled it though, the cop spotted Sonic. Sonic edged up to the corner of the cell, and gave a nod to the cop. The policeman nodded back in silent acknowledgement. The two of them prepared to rush the robots at the same time, one for each side of the army.

"Now!" the cop screamed, pulling the pin out.

The dingo hurled the grenade into the middle of the approaching crowd, before jumping out and firing on full automatic with his assault rifle. As numerous robots were riddled by the bullets, an explosion rippled through the crowd behind them, sending other robots flying through the air. Some of the soldiers had been blasted to pieces, their parts clattering all over the floor. The robot's weapons came raining down in front of the cells too.

Even as the explosion sounded off, Sonic jumped out of the cell himself and charged up a spindash. When he took off, he plowed right through the crowd of robots like a bowling ball through pins. The problem was there were just too many soldiers for him to get through, and his forward movement continued to slow as he crashed through the machines. Finally, Sonic came to a halt as he bumped his head on a robot and fell backwards to the floor. Sonic yelped in pain at the new bruise on his head, but there was no time to stop and soothe it. Jumping to his feet, he saw that several of the nearby robots were aiming their rifles at his head.

Sonic froze to the spot, rooted in terror, but then he noticed something. These soldiers had grenades strapped to their utility belts. Getting a giddy smile, the hedgehog reached for the nearest robot and pulled the pins out of its grenades. Then, Sonic jumped high into the air, as the explosion from the explosives went off. The shockwave from the explosion pushed him high into the air, as robotic limbs, heads, and torsos flew past him.

Gravity soon took over and pulled Sonic back down to the ground. He saw that he was about to fall past a fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling. The hedgehog managed to successfully land on top of it after maneuvering a bit. While the light wobbled around on its two support cables, it seemed to be able to hold his weight good enough. Sonic peeked over the side of the light. He grinned as he saw the handiwork at the handiwork both him and the cop had done. The explosions had left two massive holes in the army of robots, and there were parts of the robots scattered across the place.

Unfortunately, the robots saw Sonic up above, and started firing. He ducked his head back over the top of the light for cover. One of the lasers shots hit one of the ropes holding the light, and suddenly one end of Sonic's makeshift platform fell downwards, making his foot space vertical in the process. Unprepared for the sudden drop, Sonic slid right off the light. He managed to grasp the now-loose cable as he fell, keeping him from falling all the way back down into the crowd.

It was hardly an improvement though. Now Sonic was dangling around in front of his attackers in plain view, as he tried to keep his grasp on the swinging rope. He might as well have had a gigantic sign attached to himself that said _"Shoot me!" _

Sonic heard a whole lot more shooting below, but strangely almost none of the laser blasts came his way. He glanced down to see what was going on. A smile crossed Sonic's face as he saw what was happening. Most of the robots had stopped to fire upon him, and thus they totally ignored the prisoners collecting the discarded weapons from the dead robots. Now the prisoners were firing upon the robots and knocking them down easily. Robotnik had done his work too well with his robot's weapons.

Sonic looked up and noticed Tails flying over towards him. The hedgehog held out his hand, and the fox grabbed it as he came close.

"Thanks..." Sonic said.

"Anytime Sonic," Tails said back.

Sonic realized that they'd said the same things to each other after the laser hall, only their positions had been reversed. Tails noticed it too, and they both grinned a bit. They seemed to make quite a good team together. As they hovered down to the floor though, most of the fighting seemed to be over. The prisoners had cleared out the cell block out very well.

However, now it was time to go around and check out the losses. Dozens of injured people were being collected into the middle of the room. Some looked like they'd be okay, while others were at death's door. Zack was among them too, but since he'd been hit by a sleeping drug only he'd probably be okay. How all these people were going to get out of the base without getting killed or captured again was the biggest problem right now.

The dingo cop walked over to Sonic, armed with one of Robotnik's laser rifles.

"Great work kid, although we weren't counting on having to help this many people. I just don't see a way for us to save all of them."

"I know..." Sonic said. "You sure you don't have any ideas?"

"Hmm... Well normally in a hostage situation, our S.W.A.T. teams rely on a distraction to neutralize the suspect and escape with the hostages. But, I doubt that will do much good in this situation. We just don't have the manpower. There were six of us cops when we got in this prison, myself included. Two officers died in the attack, and Zack is out cold. We're down to three people now."

He flashed three fingers in front of Sonic and Tails, and then let out a sigh.

"Using three people to distract an army would be like using a fly to distract a speeding car. There's just no point in doing it."

"What if me and Tails helped?" Sonic asked.

"Huh? Are you serious? I mean, yeah, you did a great job on the robots, but against a whole army?"

Sonic smiled and chuckled. His victory over the robots just now had given him a great confidence. If he could take on that many robots at the same time and live, then what's was there to say he couldn't take on Robotnik either?

"I sure am serious. I'll go straight up to Robotnik's chamber and fight him myself. He'll be too busy trying to protect himself to chase after you. You can use that time to escape."

The dingo shook his head.

"There's no way you'll be able to do that. You're dreaming too big, kid. People tend to do that a lot at your age, you know? You're overestimating your abilities."

Sonic didn't care, because now was the perfect time to go after Robotnik. The hedgehog was so close to the fat human he could practically smell him. However...Sonic realized he didn't know where to find Robotnik in here. That would be easy to fix though. The hedgehog looked around for Dr. Skeleck, and spotted the doctor nearby tending to a wounded raccoon on the floor.

"Dr. Skeleck," Sonic said.

The doctor turned around, as Sonic ran over to him.

"Ye-yes? What do you need Sonic?"

"How do I get to Robotnik's rooms from here? Do you know?"

"Well, erm...it's actually not all that hard to get to from here if you know the way. At the end of the hallway leading to this prison you go right, and you arrive at a bank of elevators. You can access each floor of this base by using them. That's what the used to transport me and the other doctors to Robotnik's chambers for treatment. You just get off at the top floor, make another right, and there you are."

"Thanks a lot doc! I owe you one!" Sonic said.

"Well why would you need that information?" the bat asked.

"They think they're gonna go up to Robotnik's private rooms and kill him, that's what," the dingo cop said, joining in the conversation. "Crazy kids."

"I'm going after him!" Sonic yelled at the cop. "There's nothing you can do to stop me! Come on Tails! Let's go get egg belly!"

"Right behind you Sonic!"

And before the cop could stop either of them, they zoomed back down the entrance hallway towards the elevators that the doctor had mentioned before. Sonic ran down the hall, as Tails flew alongside him. Both of them looked at each other as they went, and nodded. It was confirmed. They were going to be behind each other all the way, and neither of them would back down.


	17. Going Up

**Chapter 17: Going Up**

**March 21st, 2314 – 2:50 PM – Robotnik's Base **

Sonic and Tails reached the end of the hall, and turned right as Dr. Skeleck had directed. They now stood before a broad bank of elevator doors. The number _"10"_ was stenciled on the wall next to the floors, which told them they were on the tenth floor. Nine sets of elevator doors stood in a line along the wall, waiting for a passenger to step up and press a button. The corridor here was empty of enemies, but Tails doubted it would stay that way for long.

"Well, here goes..." Sonic said, pressing an _"Up"_ button next to one of the elevators.

They waited for about twenty seconds, but nothing happened. They didn't even hear the sound of the machinery behind the elevator doors. Sonic walked down past each elevator and pressed all the other buttons. Even after a few minutes, no elevators had arrived yet.

"What's wrong?" Tails asked. "Are the elevators broken?"

"Probably..." Sonic said, pacing alongside the doors. "To tell you the truth, I really didn't think it would be just as easy as riding an elevator up to Robotnik. Maybe we should find another way—"

There was a soft ping behind Tails as the middle elevator's light came on, and the doors opened up to reveal a utilitarian elevator car. The car didn't look like much more than a large metal box, with a naked light bulb in the ceiling and buttons next to the door. A metal crate was also pushed to one corner. Tails mouth hung open in surprise, and the fox turned to face Sonic. The hedgehog too looked a bit taken aback by that elevator suddenly arriving like that.

"Well, are we going to take it up?" Sonic asked.

"Are you crazy?" Tails said. "What if this is another trap? Like that laser hallway?"

"That's a good point, but we just don't have the time to look for another way to Robotnik's rooms."

Tails contemplating what they should do. While doing that, he examined the elevator car closely, trying to imagine all sorts of ways this thing could be a trap. The cables could be cut while they were going up. The car could be filled with nerve gas. The buttons would be rigged, so the elevator only dropped them off on a floor where dozens of robots would be waiting for them.

Sonic suddenly stepped up beside Tails, and pointed to the ceiling of the elevator car.

"Hey look...there's an escape hatch in the ceiling," he said. "If there's any trouble, all we gotta do is open that thing up, and we can get out."

Sonic started to step inside the car.

"Sonic! Don't!" Tails shouted. He feared doing that would spring some sort of deathtrap.

Fortunately though, nothing happened, at least not yet. Sonic pushed the metal crate in the elevator under the trap door, and grabbed for the handle on the hatch overhead. The latch turned easily, and Sonic opened up the small door. After he looked around outside the elevator car for a moment or two, he looked back down at Tails.

"Here's an idea," Sonic said. "Instead of taking the elevator, we can just climb up the shaft straight to the top. That way we won't be stuck in this car if there's trouble."

"How far up do we gotta climb?" Tails asked.

"Looks like ninety floors," Sonic said, pointing his finger at the elevator buttons. "The highest number here is one hundred, and we're on the tenth floor right now."

Tails let out a moan, as he shook his head back and forth.

"Well you're the one who doesn't wanna take the elevator," Sonic shot back.

"I know...but I didn't think we'd have to climb that high."

"Let's just do it now. Sitting here complaining about it isn't going to get anything done."

Sonic climbed up through the escape hatch and disappeared onto the top of the car. Tails let out a sigh, and followed after him. As soon as he was on the roof of the car safely, he looked up.

"Wow..." the fox mumbled.

This shaft was quite a sight to behold. Tails could barely even see the ceiling at the top, since the vertical corridor was so long. All along the shaft, they could see hundreds of closed elevator doors, in addition to all the metal machinery that let the elevators run. Suddenly, Sonic grabbed Tails' arm.

"Come on...less gawking, more flying!" he said.

"Right," Tails said, twisting his tails.

The pair lifted off from the elevator car, and they were on their way up to the top. It wasn't too bad at first, but as they passed the doors marked with a _"36", _Tails realized he was starting to get quite tired. Even if Sonic weren't coming along, this would be really tiring. They'd have to stop on the way up and rest. Tails started glancing around the shaft, looking for a place where he could sit down. Fortunately, there seemed to be platforms at intervals along the shaft, probably for maintenance. Tails started to move over towards one of them. While the fox was tired, he was still happy with the decision of going this way to the top. At least they were avoiding whatever traps were in the elevator car by doing this...

A laser blast sizzled right past Tails' eye, and the fox shrieked in surprise. He looked around to see where the blast had come from, and glanced up. Some of the elevator doors above them started opening up, and robot soldiers took up sniping positions in the open doorways. It looked like this shaft was dangerous, no matter how they chose to get to the top.

"Oh dammit!" Sonic screamed.

The robot soldiers opened fire again, as Tails dodged left and right to avoid the shots. He was so focused on keeping from getting hit he didn't notice his grip on Sonic's hand was loosening.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled. "Don't let go of me!"

The scream caused Tails to look down at Sonic. However, that turned out to be a big tactical error. One laser blast nearly hit Tails when he wasn't watching for it, and he crashed into a wall. Sonic and Tails fell down a couple dozen feet before they crash landed on another maintenance platform. Sonic groaned as he got up, and then he extended a hand to help Tails up as well.

"How bad are you hurt Tails?" Sonic yelled, trying to be heard over the shooting.

Tails shook his head, rubbing the spot where he'd hit it against a wall.

"I'll be okay, but I'm feeling kind of dizzy," Tails said. "I don't think I should try flying for a little while. We should climb the rest of the way."

"Magnificent..." Sonic mumbled, looking at how much higher they still had to go.

Tails glanced at the numbers on the nearby doors, and saw that they were on Floor 49 right now. There were still more than fifty stories left to go. However, as he glanced up the elevator shaft, he noticed something. The maintenance platforms were positioned at just the right heights, so that they worked together like a giant staircase. If they kept jumping up and forward along the platforms, they could use the platforms like stepping stones to get higher quickly.

"Sonic, do you see that?" he said, pointing at the platforms.

"What?" the hedgehog asked.

"Look how the platforms are positioned... It's like they make a gigantic staircase we can use to jump up to the top!"

"Good eye Tails! Let's get going!"

"Righto!"

The two of them took a flying leap up to the next level of platforms. It was a bit tricky, but they easily got on the ledges at Floor 50.

"All right!" Sonic said. "If we just keep doing this over and over, we'll be up at the top in no time!"

More laser blasts hit the floor around their feet and Tails gasped in fright.

"We gotta keep going, or they'll hit us!" Tails said.

"Rght!"

And so, they rapidly jumped up the stair-like ledges as they continued to climb. In a short amount of time, they had reached Floor 60. As they went up, Tails realized that while there were a lot of soldiers, they had horrible accuracy when it came to hitting fast-moving targets like the two of them were. It was easy to dodge the shots as long as they kept moving fast.

However, as Tails was about to leap up to reach Floor 72, Sonic yelled out at him.

"Look out Tails! Beneath you!"

Sonic was too slow to scream out his warning though, and Tails had already jumped. The fox looked below him to see that an elevator car was rapidly coming up from below, and it was about to hit him. Tails couldn't do anything about it though. The elevator car smacked right into Tails, and that sent him bouncing up into the air. Tails tumbled end over end as he started to fall down, unable to control how his body was moving. By pure luck tough, he ended up crash-landing on the platform he was leaping for.

Tails was quite banged up from his brush with that elevator car though. A big bruise was on his head, and so were his knees. The concussion in his head made everything look blurry, although it was already receding. His injuries felt like they'd recover fast enough, and so he got back up onto his feet again. Meanwhile, Sonic jumped up beside him.

"You all right!" he yelled over the shooting.

"I'll...I'll be okay..." Tails said.

"You sure?"

"Yeah Sonic."

Several laser shots ate up the platform they were standing on, and the two jumped back a bit to avoid them. They nearly fell off the other end of the ledge in the process.

"Sonic, there's just no time to check!" Tails yelled at him. "We gotta keep moving!"

Sonic reared back a bit, looking surprised by his outburst.

"Sorry," Tails said, quickly apologizing.

"Save it for later!" Sonic said, jumping up to the next floor. "Like you said, we gotta go!"

Tails nodded and followed him up. A few moments later, they made it to at Floor 81. This time, it was Tails who spotted an elevator car coming up from the floors far below. Sonic was about to jump into its path.

"Don't do it Sonic!" Tails yelled out, jumping up to where Sonic was. "There's another car coming up!"

Sonic nearly jumped, but then he stumbled as he stopped.

"Whew...thanks Tails," he said, looking over at the fox.

Sonic glanced down.

"You're a bit early... It's still a ways down."

Tails looked over the edge, and saw that while the elevator was moving fast, it was a bit far down.

"Hey though, this could be useful," Sonic said. "We could ride this car the rest of the way to the top, if that's where it's going."

"Great idea Sonic!" Tails said.

"Get ready to jump then..."

When the car was three stories below them, Sonic yelled, "Jump now!"

The two leaped onto the car easily. Its destination did indeed seem to be the top floor. The car smoothly stopped right at the doors marked "_100"._ Sonic and Tails smiled at each other. The hedgehog scooted over and opened the hatch into the elevator car itself. A robot soldier was just stepping out through the doors, but it heard the clanking of the two intruders climbing around on the car. As the robot saw Sonic through the open hatch, it brought a blaster rifle to bear. Before it could fire a shot though, Sonic had easily gone straight through its chest with his spinball attack, shearing the robot in half. The pieces clattered to the floor as Tails followed him down.

"We made it!" Tails said.

"Not yet...we still gotta deal with Robotnik."

"Oh yeah...you're right," he said, as he looked around the top floor they were in.

To be honest, it wasn't much to look at. The elevator had let them out in a small hallway. There was a door off to the left, but it was locked. That was probably Robotnik's personal quarters. Sonic was about to break down the door when he decided to look down the other end of the hall. He saw stairs leading up, and just had an instinctive feeling that this was the direction they needed to go in. Once again, Sonic and Tails looked at each other, and nodded. They were behind each other all the way.

Without hesitation in their steps, they marched down the corridor next to each other, towards the stairs. As they got closer to the steps, Tails realized he could hear thunder. He almost immediately saw why. It was coming from a storm that was gathering outside the building. Glass windows lined the stairs, and gave them a view across Robotnik's entire base. They were all the way at the top now. However, they could also see the thick storm clouds coming together outside. Lightning bolts flashed past the glass, briefly lighting up the corridor with a blinding light every time they struck. This was followed by loud thunder, which gave the passageway a very ominous feeling.

Still though, Tails hardly wavered in his steps as the two finally reached the top. A large metal door stood only a few steps away, marked by the golden insignia of Robotnik's face. Tails just felt that Robotnik was right behind this door, but he felt himself wavering a bit. All their hard work was about to pay off...but what if something horrible happened? It was a terrifying, and yet amazing feeling. Even though he was worried about what was behind it, he felt himself anxious to keep going.

Once again, Sonic looked at Tails and nodded. Tails hesitated a bit, but he nodded back within a couple seconds. Sonic placed one hand on the handle, and turned it. Then he slowly opened the door...


	18. Lightning Round

**Chapter 18: Lightning Round **

**March 21st, 2314 – 3:00 PM – Robotnik's Base **

Tails wasn't sure what would be on the other side of the door, but it wasn't what he expected. The door led them into a large, circular room, with a seamless glass window running all the way around the wall. Computers of all sorts covered almost every inch of the room. Most of them built into work stations below the window. Even more computer monitors hung from the ceiling. A large black leather chair sat in the middle of the room, and it looked like it was designed to accommodate a very large man. A set of computers just for the chair was also on a table in front of it.

However, there was one thing that Tails didn't expect at all from this room: Robotnik wasn't here.

"What the...?" Sonic whispered. "Where's Robotnik? I thought for sure he'd be here."

Tails didn't respond. He swept his eyes across the room, trying to think of what he should make of this. Was this some kind of trick? Another bolt of lightning struck, illuminating the tower in a blinding flash and shaking the foundation with the thunder. Tails heard a weird sound after the thunder though. It was like some kind of humming noise...

He didn't have time to ponder the sound any further though, when there a loud booming noise blasted at his eardrums. A split second later, there was a bright flash of light at the front of the room. Electrical bolts danced across the computers, before all of them blew apart in a massive explosion. When the smoke cleared, there was a big hole in the tower wall where it had been. Tails looked in bewilderment at the inexplicable blast. However, once his ears finished ringing, he heard the all too familiar sound of the jet engine of Robotnik's ship.

As the egg-shaped vehicle appeared into view, Tails saw Robotnik had made some modifications to it since their last fight. A giant lightning rod stuck out of the back of the machine, while stabilizing wings stuck out from either side of the craft. A massive cannon hanging from the underbelly cackled with electricity.

"Hello runts!" Robotnik called out. "We meet again! I must say, just like your fathers, you've done a very good job making it this far by yourselves."

"Just like our fathers?" Sonic asked.

"This situation we are in right now. It feels...nostalgic." Robotnik said. "Six years ago, in Robotnik War I, I was holding the city of Reppoc in Lufetsaw with my army, when I noticed two life forms breaking through all of my defenses with ease. They managed to get all the way to the City Hall, which is where I was at the time. Anyway, we had a battle on the roof, a bit similar to the fight we are about to have. During the fight, I sorely underestimated your fathers. They were able to capture me."

Sonic and Tails smiled.

"Don't get so cocky you insolent children!" Robotnik snarled back. "You won't escape from me this time! Now, prepare to meet your fathers in the afterlife!"

The cannon on the bottom of the ship charged up, as it gathered energy. Sonic and Tails prepared to dodge the shot, but oddly Robotnik seemed to be aiming too high to hit them. As he fired, there was a bright flash of light. A beam of electric energy came out of the cannon, and it struck the roof over their heads. The two heroes looked up as the ceiling exploded inward and started collapsing.

While Tails ducked underneath a metal computer desk, Sonic rolled off towards the other side of the room. The debris collapsed all around the table. Fortunately, the metal of the counter seemed to be holding, and the falling metal stopped coming after a few seconds. On the other hand though, now the rubble had him trapped under the table.

"Tails!" Sonic called out. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay! But I'm stuck down here!"

Tails tried to move one of the pieces of the ceiling out of the way, but it hardly budged even when he put all his strength behind it.

"Hold on!" Sonic yelled. "I'll help you out!"

Sonic revved up a spin dash, and then a second later the rocks in front of the table were blasted to pebbles by the attack. Tails coughed hard as the dust entered his nose, but he easily managed to crawl out through the cleared passage.

"Thanks," Tails said through his coughs.

"Hey...no problem," Sonic said, helping him up.

"You're not done yet are you!" Robotnik called out. "We're just getting started!"

The two looked out to see Robotnik's egg ship hovering outside through one of the holes in the tower's wall. Strangely, he appeared to be waiting for something. All of a sudden, a lightning bolt struck the lightning rod on Robotnik's ship. The rod glowed white, as did the cannon on the bottom of the craft. Apparently his beam cannon relied on the power of the lightning bolts for energy.

"All charged up again!" Robotnik shouted. "Ready for another go?"

There was another loud humming noise, and Robotnik fired a shot inside the tower. It blasted apart a wall behind Sonic and Tails, showering them with metal and glass.

"We can't fight him in here!" Sonic said. "If that cannon doesn't hit us, we'll get crushed underneath something instead! We have to go up!"

"Right!" Tails said back.

Sonic looked up towards one of the holes in the ceiling, and he easily jumped up through it. Tails quickly followed behind. If they weren't so busy fighting, the roof of this tower would make for quite a spectacular view. With how high up they were, they could see across the Land of Darkness for miles. Instead though, the view meant danger. One misplaced step could send Sonic falling to the rocks far below. Tails would need to keep an eye out for his hedgehog friend.

The cannon fired a shot at Tails, but he easily jumped back to avoid it, and landed safely back down on the metal roof.

_That cannon may be strong, but it looks like it's quite hard to aim at small targets. Not to mention it takes a long time to recharge. _

The cannon shot struck the section of the roof where he had been standing only a second before. This caused the roof to begin breaking apart, and the cracks in the metal were moving towards Sonic. The hedgehog jumped to avoid the collapsing floor, but his leap was sending him straight off the tower roof. Fortunately, Sonic didn't fall over the edge when he landed, but he was pretty damn close. He was frantically waving his arms around to maintain his balance. Sonic was actually starting to fall over the edge when Tails grabbed his arm and pulled him back to safety.

There was no time to give thanks though. Robotnik fired again, this time at the base of the tower, and the entire building felt like it was shaking from the impact. Sonic and Tails were having trouble just trying to maintain their footing from the artificial earthquake. They fell through a hole in the roof and smacked down to the floor below. It was incredibly painful to get back up again, but Sonic and Tails shook it off and shambled to their feet.

As the building continued to shake though, Sonic realized that the cannon shot had done more than just make the building shake. The floor started to lean underneath their feet, as the view from the hole in the wall in front of them started to tilt downwards towards the ground. The tower this control room was in was toppling downward due to the cannon damage. There was a terrible sound of screeching metal, like nails across a chalkboard magnified a thousand times, as the building ripped away from the main structure of the base.

"What do we do Sonic!" Tails yelled. "The whole tower is going to fall down the mountain with us inside it!"

Sonic looked back at Tails. The hedgehog's eyes showed pure terror, with the way they were darting around nervously, trying to look at everything at once. However, they seemed to stop on something behind the fox. Tails whirled around and saw that he was looking at the hole in the wall in the back of the room, which had been shot open by Robotnik's third cannon shot. It would provide a good way for them to escape.

"Tails, get to the hole!" Sonic said. "I'll follow up behind you! Once we're there, fly us away from the tower!"

"Got it!" Tails yelled.

He started scrambling across the floor to reach the door, but it was getting harder fast with how the floor was getting more and more vertical. Eventually, Tails started flying since he couldn't maintain his footing anymore, and he felt Sonic latch onto his foot. Tails looked straight up, and flew as hard as he could towards the exit that was now above them. With an extra burst of speed, they finally escaped through the opening and out of the tower.

Now that they were out in the open sky, they looked down. Below them, the big tower fully fell over, and then it started rolling down the side of the mountain. Eventually it crashed into the refuse yard they'd used to enter the base. Several of the refuse trucks were smashed into metal pancakes by the force, and piles of metal were blasted apart. It finally came to rest just as it started to enter the trees.

"Most impressive!" Robotnik shouted to them. "I've totally underestimated both of you!"

All three of them were now hovering in the air. However, Robotnik started to charge up another shot. Tails steeled himself to dodge. As the gun unleashed its torrent of electrical energy, the two of them easily avoided the shot.

"Good work Tails!" Sonic said.

"Thanks, but what do we do now Sonic?" Tails asked.

"It's our turn to fight back this time. Here's what we're gonna do. You fly us towards Robotnik's ship, and throw me towards it. I'll go into a spinball attack and smash into it."

"But won't you fall?"

"Yeah, you can catch me while I'm falling, can't you?"

"Erm...I guess. Are you sure about this?"

"Well what else can we do? We don't have any other ways to attack a flying enemy."

Tails let out a sigh.

"I guess you're right. Okay then, hold on!"

Tails put on a burst of speed and shot towards Robotnik's ship. The doctor began to grin as they got closer. When they were about fifty feet away, he reached with one hand towards a control that was out of sight.

"Tails! Turn left!" Sonic screamed.

Tails jumped a bit at Sonic's sudden yell, but obeyed all the same. As they moved to the left, Robotnik fired a torrent of lasers where they had been before. They only barely missed the pair.

"All right! Now fly right us up to him! And get ready to throw me!" Sonic yelled.

Tails again did as Sonic asked. They were now flying straight towards Robotnik's ship. Robotnik started sweating, as he was having trouble trying to turn the ship around to shoot at them. Meanwhile, Tails brought his arms back and tossed Sonic forward. Sonic launched into a somersault so that he was in the shape of a spiky ball.

A loud crunch of metal sounded as Sonic crashed into Robotnik's ship and bounced off, while the doctor howled with rage. Tails didn't take time to look though, because he was already focused on grabbing the hedgehog again. Sonic uncurled out of his ball and started falling to the ground. Frantically, Tails dived and grabbed a hold on his arm. Now that Sonic was safe, Tails took time to see what damage had been done. There was a dent in the ship the size of an artillery shell, and Tails grinned a little seeing that.

A large bolt of lightning flashed past Tails, making him shriek in fright. He wasn't especially fond of lightning and decided to fly lower to keep from getting shocked. They were now hovering a couple dozen feet above the ground.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled. "What are you doing!"

"It's the lightning, Sonic," Tails said. "I don't wanna get hit."

"But if we don't go up there we won't be able to fight back!"

"What's the matter you runts?" Robotnik called out. "Afraid of the lightning?"

Tails growled a bit at that comment. It was amazing how different he'd felt the last time he'd met Robotnik. Tails had been too scared to even look at him, much less fight him. Now though, he was so angry that he didn't care about anything but killing him. He flew up again to continue the battle, with Sonic in his grasp.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled. "We're in range now! Throw me!"

"All right Sonic!" Tails shouted. "Here I go!"

Tails flew straight up towards Robotnik's ship, and yanked his arm up as fast as he could to throw Sonic. The hedgehog easily flew upwards and went into his spiky ball shape. Sonic collided with the bottom of the ship, next to the lightning cannon. This time though, the hedgehog's foot got tangled up around one of the laser cannons, and he was stuck on it. He was now hanging by one foot from the gun, and frantically waved at Tails to help.

"I'm coming Sonic! Hold on!" Tails yelled.

Tails didn't get more than a few feet though, before another lightning bolt shot down from the sky. The bolt struck the fox and charged his body with millions of volts of electricity. Tails instantly went unconscious and fell to the ground below.

**---**

"Tails! No!" Sonic screamed as he saw the lightning bolt hit his adopted brother.

The fox instantly went limp and fell through the sky, landing with a sickening bounce on a patch of dirt down below. He wasn't moving.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled, as he was on the verge of tears. "Get up! Please!"

There was no response at all though from Tails. He sat there, looking as still as death. As the time passed though, Sonic's tears faded away and rage took its place. Tails was dead now, and if Robotnik has never challenged Tails to come back up again it wouldn't have happened.

"Robotnik!" Sonic screamed. "It's time to finish this! I'm going to kill you!"

"We'll see about that Sonic!" Robotnik called out from above. "Hang on if you can!"

Suddenly, the ship began diving and rolling. Robotnik was trying to throw him off by bucking the ship all over the place. His leg slipped, but he just managed to flip over and grab the laser cannon with both arms. He held on for dear life as Robotnik continued to swing the ship all over the place.

Next, Robotnik did a dive towards the rocks below. Sonic's eyes widened in terror, and he flipped himself upwards like a gymnast so that his entire body was curled around the barrel of the laser cannon. The rocks passed just inches below him as Robotnik zoomed across them. He actually felt a few graze the tips of his quills.

"Still down there Sonic?" Robotnik called out.

As Robotnik pulled back up into the air again, Sonic realized he'd had enough. He was going to climb up there and kill Robotnik now. He saw what looked like a pipe running alongside the ship, probably for fuel or something, and made a grab for it. He easily latched on, and now he was hanging on the side of the ship. He actually managed to poke his head over the side, and saw Robotnik flying along in his ship.

That turned out to be a mistake though. Robotnik pulled out a laser pistol and fired a shot at him. Sonic ducked down to avoid it. Robotnik then swung his arm around over the side of the ship, and blindly fired at Sonic. Fortunately, all the shots missed. Finding a foothold, Sonic catapulted himself on top of the egg ship. He was now standing beside the cockpit where Robotnik sat.

Robotnik looked up in terror, and once again brought his laser gun to bear. Sonic kicked it out of his hand, knocking it over the side of the craft and down to the ground below. Unfortunately, the kick also hit the flight stick in the cockpit, which sent the vehicle into a sickening spin.

Sonic grabbed onto the windshield of the craft, struggling to hang on as the world spun around them in a blur of colors. While the spin only lasted several seconds, it felt like ages. The ship scraped across a few rocks and bounced back into the air, nearly causing Sonic to bounce off in the process.

Finally though, Robotnik managed to grab the stick and hold the ship steady. Once the ship was still, Sonic gave a little leap and jumped over Robotnik, landing on the back of the vehicle. He was now standing behind Robotnik. Reaching down, he slung an arm around the human's neck and prepared to strangle him to death. However, Robotnik gave a little laugh as he did.

"What's so funny?" Sonic said as he was about to tighten his grip.

"Look at what I'm aiming at," Robotnik rasped out, through Sonic's choke hold on him.

Sonic looked up, and saw that his lightning cannon trained upon Tails' limp form on the ground. He also noticed that the fox was breathing, as he could see a close-up view of the fox through the magnified scope Robotnik was using to aim the cannon. He wasn't dead, but merely unconscious.

"Let me go," Robotnik said. "Or I press this button and vaporize your friend."

The human's thumb on his right hand was now hovering over a sinister-looking red button. Sonic was dimly aware of the humming noise underneath the ship, which meant the lightning cannon had finished charging and it was ready to fire.

"I mean it," Robotnik said. "Do it now."

"And if you kill Tails, I'll kill you too," Sonic shot back.

They were in a stalemate. Sonic had to try to think of something he could do to turn this in his favor, before Robotnik figured out a way to do the same. He realized that in order to keep Robotnik from killing Tails, he'd have to somehow get his hand away from that button. Then he'd have to get the cannon to aim somewhere else besides Tails. After that, he could probably kill Robotnik at his leisure.

Sonic had grabbed Robotnik with both of his arms, so he'd have to let go with his right arm to force Robotnik's right hand away. Then he could reach for the flight stick again to turn the ship in a crazy direction. Even if Sonic was lightning fast with his body, he felt a bit nervous. This was a delicate operation, and Tails' life could be ended in a split second if he screwed up. Slowly, he gathered up his courage.

_All right, here goes! _

Sonic unfurled his right from Robotnik's neck as fast as he could, and slapped Robotnik's right arm away from the red button. While Robotnik was surprised by the sudden move, he tried to reach back over to the button with his left arm. Sonic was faster though, grabbing the flight stick and pulling backwards on it. The ship went vertical, heading straight up into the air.

Sonic wasn't ready to hold on this time though, and so he fell backwards off of the egg ship. Fortunately, during the struggle, the ship had gotten closer to the ground below, so he didn't have that far to fall. He landed safely amongst the sharp rocks that dotted the mountainside, and scrambled up the side to the ledge where Tails was. The fox's fur was standing up on end from the electricity that had surged across it, but he appeared to be breathing and looked like he'd recover just fine if he got medical attention. Next, he looked back at what Robotnik was doing. He'd managed to regain control of his ship, and was now facing the two of them. Another lightning bolt struck the lightning rod in Robotnik's ship, recharging the cannon to full power.

"You're finished now Sonic!" Robotnik called out. "You don't have that handy little fox to fly you up to me this time! That means I can blast away from up here all I like and you can't do a thing about it! Now eat rocks!"

Robotnik charged up his cannon again, aiming at the mountainside above him and Tails. After he fired, there was a big explosion, which triggered an avalanche. Rocks began tumbling downwards, towards him and Tails. Instinctively, Sonic picked up Tails, and then frantically started looking around, seeking a place where he could take cover. At long last, he spotted a small cave about thirty feet away.

Jumping across the shards of jagged stone as fast as he could, he finally made it to the cave and dived inside. It wasn't a moment too soon, for rocks started rolling straight down over the top of the cave's entrance as he leaped inside. The boulders stormed past the shelter with a deafening thunder. Sonic had to reach up and cover his ears just to block out the rumbling noise. About twenty seconds later though, it was over. The cave entrance had been sealed partially, but Sonic could probably slip out easy enough. He started to get up, and then realized he was still holding Tails.

_Maybe I better leave him here. That way I won't have to worry about protecting him while I'm fighting Robotnik. _

Sonic gently put Tails down on the ground, and exited the cave.

"You just won't give up, will you?" Robotnik yelled from above. "It doesn't matter! I've got all the time in the world here, since you're stuck on the ground!"

Sonic wasn't exactly afraid right now. In truth, he was actually more pissed off than afraid. He absolutely hated being in such a helpless position. This was his opportunity to end Robotnik's reign of terror once and for all, and it was just out of his reach simply due to the fact that the doctor was hovering like a coward just out his reach. It was such a cheap way to win a fight. Sonic had no idea what he was going to do now. He let out a sigh of defeat.


	19. Old Faces

**Chapter 19: Old Faces **

**March 21st, 2314 – 3:05 PM – Robotnik's Base **

Sonic shakily moved backwards, as Robotnik edged his ship closer. The mad doctor laughed all the while, greatly enjoying the fact that Sonic was totally helpless. Meanwhile, Sonic's mind was racing as he tried to think of a way he could get out of this situation. Tails often did this part of the job, where he figured ways they could get out of bad situations. But without him, Sonic was dead in the water.

A loud booming sound echoed through the sky, like a cannon shot. Robotnik screamed as a gigantic hole appeared in the side of his ship. The machine tilted wildly out of control. Sonic covered his ears to block out the thunderous sound. He wasn't sure, but the sound of that gun was familiar…

"Zack's gun?" Sonic realized. "He's here?"

Sonic glanced in the direction of the gunshot, and saw a figure on top of the hill. The person up there was clearly holding Zack's anti-tank rifle, judging from the silhouette's outline. Robotnik screamed in rage again, and Sonic looked back to see what new damage there was. The lightning gun on the bottom of the ship was sparking all over the place, and it looked like it was about to fall off. The engine was coughing black smoke all over the place, as the vehicle drifted closer to the ground.

"Goddamn it! Fly you worthless piece of junk!"

Sonic realized that the ship was low enough for him to hit with a spinball attack. He let out a small smile, and he dashed over across the rocks towards the damaged craft. Leaping off of the rocks, he curled into a spiky ball and flew straight towards the vehicle. Sonic took off the left stabilizing wing as he crashed into the egg ship. After stopping himself, the hedgehog leaped back up again and knocked the lightning cannon loose. It crumpled on the ground as it hit the hard rocks.

"Damn you, hedgehog!" Robotnik screamed as he looked down at Sonic. "Stop it!"

On the contrary, those words made Sonic want to smash up Robotnik's ship even more. The hedgehog grinned and laughed crazily as he continued to crash into the thing over and over again. Before long, the ship looked like it had passed through a rock crusher, and it was flying so low it was hardly floating above the ground now. Robotnik turned his ship face Sonic. The doctor had an expression of rage upon his face.

"You should just give up now Robotnik," Sonic said, folding his arms. "Just face it; it's all over. Your ship isn't going to fly anymore, and you've lost your lightning cannon."

"No way Sonic," Robotnik said, suddenly getting a smirk on his face. "This is only the beginning."

Sonic was about to ask Robotnik why he said that, when they both heard the sound of a jet engine in the distance. The hedgehog looked up to see what was making the sound. A sleek black plane was headed straight towards Robotnik, as it fired a green tractor beam from the bottom.

"No!" Sonic yelled as he ran towards Robotnik. "You're not getting away!"

"Farewell, son of Swift Hedgehog," Robotnik said, waving goodbye.

Just as Sonic was about to reach Robotnik, the tractor beam moved over the doctor and the egg ship. It easily carried the fat human and his ship up into the aircraft. As the doors slammed shut, the plane zoomed off away from the base. In just a few seconds, it was already nearly too small to see.

"Dammit," Sonic said. "I was this close to killing him and ending this stupid war!"

"Oh, don't let it get you down," a friendly voice behind Sonic said. "You did great."

That voice… It sounded familiar. But it couldn't be who Sonic thought it was. When he whirled around to look though, his eyes confirmed that he hadn't heard the speaker wrong. It was Tex Randalph, the wolf from the gas station, back from the dead.

"How ya doin', kid?" he said with a smile on his face.

At his side Tex held Zack's anti-tank rifle. He looked terrible and scruffy, like he hadn't bathed for days, not to mention the blood on his shirt. However, despite Tex's looks, he had a very warm smile on his face, and he looked completely different from the wolf Sonic had seen back at the gas station days ago. The hedgehog was speechless for a moment.

"H-h-how...?" Sonic mumbled.

"How'd I survive?" Tex said, finishing for him. He cleared his throat. ""It's a bit of a long story. I was wrong about my gas station being a safe place to hide. After you left a Robotnik air patrol flew over the place, and they must have picked me up on infrared. They blew up the station to flush me out. I was able to get out, but I lost everything in there.

"Anyway, I tried to fight them off with my shotgun, but there was just too many of them and only one of me. I got hit by a stun gun and captured in no time. Several hours later, I woke up in that prison and I was in there for a while. Hey, do you think you could you tell me what day it is?"

"Th-the twenty-first, I think."

"Damn...I was locked up in there only a week? It felt like ages. Anyway, when you and those cops did that jailbreak and let us all out, I was in that crowd. I saw you helping out the cops, and I couldn't believe you had those ass-kicking skills! Why didn't you show off any of that stuff like the super speed while I was with you?"

"I was shot in the leg, remember? Speaking of that time, why are you being so friendly to me all of a sudden?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I feel like a real asshole for how I treated you and your fox friend. But, I guess saving you from Robotnik just now should be enough to make up for it."

Sonic found himself relaxing, and smiled at Tex. It was still so freaky seeing him be so friendly though.

"Heh, thanks," he said.

Tex smiled back too.

"You know, I'm real sorry I said I hoped Robotnik would catch you two. Who knew you'd end up giving him a run for his money like this?"

Sonic was once again stunned by how friendly Tex was.

"Well, I'm sorry for saying I hoped you burn in hell," Sonic said with a chuckle.

Both of them broke out into laughter.

"I guess we both have a lot to be sorry for," Tex said, between laughs. "Like me hoarding all that food for myself when there was no way I'd be able to eat it anyway."

"We told you that you wouldn't need that much!" Sonic said.

"Yeah I know. Heh heh, fat lot of good hoarding all that food in there did me, what with how it all got blown to hell. That's what I get for being greedy, I guess. Oh, by the way, what happened after you got broken out of prison?"

"After you zoomed out of there, I asked the dingo cop what was going on. He said you'd gone to face Robotnik all by yourself with your friend, so that the prisoners would have a distraction to use to escape. Well, since I remembered how I treated you when we first met, I figured I owed you. So I picked up that huge rifle from that bobcat commander of yours, and then I started chasing after you. I only just made it to the top floor of the elevators and outside when I saw you getting attacked by Robotnik out here. It looked like you needed a hand, what with how you couldn't reach Robotnik, so I put this gun here to good use."

"Well thanks a lot!" Sonic said. "That was just what I needed."

"Heh, it's no problem at all."

Suddenly, a loud whirring noise interrupted their talk, which was followed by the sound of hundreds of jets. Robotnik's planes flew out of the hangar bays dotted across the mountain. Dozens, maybe hundreds of them were pouring out of the base. As they left the base, they took off in the direction Robotnik's jet had gone.

"What's going on?" Sonic asked.

"It looks like they're retreating...leaving the base," Tex said. "Why are they doing that?"

"Attention! Attention!" a computerized voice droned, echoing across the mountain via a loudspeaker system. "The self-destruct sequence for this base has been initiated! Explosives will detonate in five minutes! Evacuate the area!"

Alarms began blaring all around them.

"That's why!" Sonic shouted. "Robotnik's going to blow up his entire base just to kill all of us? He's crazy! "

"Looks like it!" Tex yelled back. "No time to waste! We need to get out of here!"

"But how are we gonna climb down this mountain in time? I'm fast, but speed only works when there's not a ton of rocks in the way!"

"We can take the elevator back down and escape through the base," Tex said, as he pointed at a building near where the tower was before. "Do you know a floor we can stop at that will let us out?"

"Yeah, we can stop at Floor 10 and leave through the garbage dump, but that could take a while!"

"We don't have much of a choice! It's the only way out of this base that you know about, and it'll take too long to find another way."

"Dammit! If only Tails were still awake he could just fly us down to the bottom!"

"No use whining about it. That isn't going to make him wake up. Now let's go get him and get moving!"

"Right!"

Sonic zipped over to the small cave where he had left Tails before, and picked up the fox in his arms. He was a bit heavy, although fear coursing through his body had lent him extra strength he didn't know he had. He climbed out of the cave as fast as he could. Tex was waiting outside for him.

"Let me take Tails," Tex said. "I'm good at holding heavy loads."

Sonic did think that he'd probably have a hard time hauling Tails in his hands and running at the same time, so he let the wolf have him. They started scaling the rocks. It was a good thirty feet up, but they scrambled up it easily. As fast as Sonic could, he sprinted inside the building with the elevator. The glass-walled staircase had gone down with the tower, leaving a doorway where it used to connect to the stairs. Within a second, he had moved over to the elevator and pressed the button. The doors opened up, and Sonic stepped inside. He looked back outside and saw that Tex was just entering the hallway. He was carrying Tails on his back.

"Come on!" Sonic yelled, waving for the wolf to hurry up. "Hurry up!"

As Tex jumped inside the elevator and Sonic pressed the "10" button, the computerized voice spoke again over the alarms.

"Four minutes until self-destruct."

The elevator doors slammed closed. While the elevator whooshed down the ninety floors to Level 10 in less than thirty seconds, it felt like an eternity for Sonic. He barely even registered his stomach bouncing around in his body as the elevator stopped. He was totally focused on the doors. The moment they opened, Sonic started barreling down the hallway.

"Hey!" Tex shouted. "Don't leave me behind! I won't be able to find my way out without you!"

Sonic screeched to a halt and turned back to face him.

"Sorry!"

"Don't worry about it now!" Tex screamed as he caught up to Sonic. "Let's just get the hell out of here before we're fried!"

"All right," Sonic said, jogging at a pace slow enough for Tex to keep up with.

"Three minutes until self-destruct," the computer voice warned.

A jolt of panic ran through Sonic's body. He could easily get out of the base running as hard as he could, with Tails hanging from his arm, but then he'd have to leave Tex behind. He really didn't want to that. There was the possibility he could haul two people behind him as he ran, but it sounded too risky. Sonic wasn't sure if he could run with that much weight.

In the end, he chose to shut up and just jog while Tex ran beside him. Sonic tried to remember as hard as he could which halls he was supposed to take. He wasn't sure if he was going the right way or not, which quite frankly scared the hell out of him. If they were headed in the wrong direction, they would all die.

Up ahead, Sonic and Tex could hear yelling and screaming, plus the sounds of thousands of footsteps. Running around the next corner, they saw that it was the prisoners fleeing the jail Sonic and Tails had been at before. While it wasn't exactly a big crowd, there were still quite a few left.

"There are still people leaving the jail?" Sonic said. "They're going to get caught in the blast!"

"Sonic! There's no time to rescue all of them!" Tex said, jumping into the horde of people running towards the exit. "We just gotta do what we can!"

"Two minutes until self-destruct."

"Oh dammit," Sonic said, jumping into the crowd.

Tex and Sonic dashed with the crowd as fast as they could. However, there was one positive consequence for finding the crowd. The cops had probably laid out the path to the exit, and the people were just following it. They didn't have to worry anymore if they were going the wrong way. To Sonic, that was a great relief.

Finally, the line of people led them to the refuse room that Sonic and Tails had used to enter the base. The hedgehog surprised they'd made it back here this fast. As he thought about it though, he realized that the last time he'd been going this way he'd had to sneak through slowly and carefully. This time though, all the robot soldiers had evacuated and there was no longer a need to be careful. Sonic felt somewhat encouraged now. It actually seemed possible that they could get out in time.

"One minute until self-destruct."

A chorus of terrified cries rose up from the line of people dashing across the room. They ran even harder towards the refuse truck tunnel, which was the closest exit out of the base.

And with that, Sonic's moment of encouragement was blown away. Time was ticking away, and fast. Sonic deeply wished he could just dash ahead of Tex and sprint out of the base, but he didn't want to leave him or Tails behind. It felt like hours, but they finally got to the tunnel. A truck rested near the entrance, apparently stopped due to the self-destruct. Sonic paid no mind to that though, as he jogged into the tunnel behind Tex.

"Thirty seconds until self-destruct."

Sonic looked as far down the tunnel as he could, but he couldn't see any light. There was no way Tex would be able to run fast enough to get out. Sonic ran up alongside him, looking at his face. Tex looked quite panicked as well.

"Sonic, I don't think I can make it!" the wolf said. "Maybe you should just take Tails and leave me behind..."

"But I don't want to do that!" Sonic shouted.

"Sonic, it's too late for me. Just go!"

Tex brought Tails off of his shoulders and held him out to Sonic as he ran.

"No! I don't want you to die!"

Sonic briefly had the thought of trying to haul out Tex and Tails at the same time, but he didn't like that idea. Tex would have to keep a firm grip on Sonic's hands while keeping a firm grip on Tails. At this point though, it looked like the only way all three of them were going to survive.

"Tex!" Sonic yelled. "Give me your hand, and hold on tight to Tails!"

"You mean you're gonna—"

"Yeah... I'm going to have to drag you and Tails. I'm not sure if I can do it, but it's the only way we're gonna make it."

"All right Sonic!" Tex shouted, as he wrapped his arm around Sonic's arm. "I'm ready!"

"Here we go!" Sonic yelled.

The hedgehog poured on the speed as much as he could, Sonic was a bit slower because of the extra weight, but he was going faster than expected. The hedgehog dashed down the corridor as fast as he could, while dodging the people who were trying to get out as well.

"Fifteen seconds until self-destruct..."

Sonic growled out in frustration as he ran harder than he ever had in his life, trying to compensate for the extra weight. The light at the end of the tunnel shined just ahead, but could they make it? Sonic's feet felt like they were dragging through mud with how much the seconds seemed to stretch.

"Five seconds until self-destruct... Four, three, two, one..."

At the sound of the word "one", Sonic jumped up into the air, trying to gain just a few more precious feet with the leap.

"Zero."

A fireball erupted from the tunnel behind them. Time seemed to go into slow motion as Sonic began to feel the heat of the explosion. The force of the explosion tossed him like a piece of paper in the wind. Rather than having his feet stretched out in preparation for landing, Sonic felt himself being hurled for a loop. The world became nothing but a mass of whirling colors as he tumbled in midair. Sonic didn't know what was happening to Tex or Tails either. The world was just blurring so much he couldn't tell what was happening at all.

Finally, Sonic came to a crashing halt as he hit the dirt. The hedgehog must have rolled across the ground a good dozen feet before he came to a halt. Flames from the explosion blasted past him, singing his body. Sonic screamed out as he covered his head with his arms, trying to block out the pain.

But, then the pain ended just as fast as it started. The air around him rapidly cooled down. Sonic risked a glance up, and saw that he was a good hundred feet away from the truck tunnel. Flames covered the entrance, and black smoke spewed upwards into the sky. There were also several miscellaneous fires here and there around the yard. Apparently he'd just barely made it out of the blast radius.

Sonic remembered that Tex and Tails had been with him when the explosion hit, and looked around to find them. While he was looking, he realized just how awful the scene was around him. There were people running around and screaming, some of them covered with flames. Others tried to help them, but it was difficult to calm the flaming people down. Others roiled around on the ground in pain. More explosions sounded in the distance, probably from other areas of the base. Amidst the confusion though, the wolf and the fox were nowhere to be seen.

"Tex!" Sonic yelled over the screams. "Where are you?"

Then he turned around and noticed that Tex was slumped next to the wheel of a refuse truck. Tails was slumped on the ground beside him. The explosion must have thrown them towards it. Sonic sped over to them, ignoring the scorches on his body. However, even as he approached, Tex looked up.

"I'm okay Sonic..." Tex muttered. "I just hit my head on this thing. That's all."

"Good, but what about Tails?"

"Tails I think will be okay too. He was in my arm when we hit, so my body took most of the blow. Anyway, don't worry about us. See if you can help those people over there."

Tex weakly pointed a finger at the wounded and the dead, who weren't lucky enough to escape the tunnel in time.

"Got it," Sonic said.

He dashed over to a tan female coyote who was screaming in pain. Her blue jeans were on fire, and the blaze was creeping up towards her white T-shirt. She tried as hard as she could to put out the fire by patting it down with her hands, but it was no good. Sonic dashed over and used both of his hands to put out the blaze quickly. Fortunately though, with his gloves it was quite easy.

"Thanks..." she mumbled.

Sonic was about to say 'No problem' when there was a thunderous roar from above. He looked up, and saw that the mountain base above them collapse in on itself. Massive boulders fell down from above, a few heading straight towards the dump. Sonic looked down at the coyote, and grabbed her arms. Running backwards as fast as he could, Sonic hauled her to safety.

He wasn't a moment too soon. The huge rocks, some of them the size of cars, began crashing down all around them. People screamed as they ran. Sonic spotted a few getting flattened here and there, and fought back tears as he continued to drag the coyote out. Finally though, he pulled her back next to where Tex and Tails were, which seemed to be out of the range of the falling rocks.

After Sonic finished, he looked back to see a horrible scene. If the people weren't already burning to death, they were now getting crushed underneath the boulders. Sonic couldn't bear to watch, and turned away. He closed his eyes and started crying, moaning out his sadness.

_I failed... Robotnik escaped, and people are dead now. I'm sorry Kyle, Natalie, and Dad... I wasn't able to do it. What am I gonna do now? I feel so miserable that I want to kill myself. _

Sonic turned around, and he saw something strange. Tex and the coyote were staring at each other with intensity in their eyes. Why were they doing that? Suddenly, the pair embraced each other, hugging each other intensely. Even kisses were exchanged. Sonic arched an eyebrow and looked at the two of them.

"Huh?" he mumbled.

_What's all this about? _

The pair continued to hug for a little while, with their eyes closed, until suddenly Tex saw Sonic out of the corner of his eye. He straightened up and walked over towards Sonic with a smile on his face.

"Sonic, I'd like for you to meet my wife," Tex said, gesturing towards the coyote.

The hedgehog's eyes widened open in surprise. The coyote Sonic had just rescued stepped over to Tex's side. She wrapped one arm around the back of the wolf's neck.

"Hey Sonic!" the coyote said. "My name's Mary."

"You just saved my wife, and got us back together again," Tex said. "You've got no idea how happy I am right now. Until now, I thought she was dead."

"How did that happen?" Sonic asked.

"Well, you see, Mary and I were working at the gas station a while back, when we heard the news about Robotnik going after Carlboron. So, we packed up everything we had in our car, and started driving to get out. The problem was, Robotnik's army found us before we could find shelter."

"Yeah, that's right," Mary said, joining in. "Robotnik attacked while we were driving down the highway, and we crashed when they dropped a bomb on the road in right front of us. We started running, but I got shot with a stun gun."

"I tried to stop to help her after that, but there were just too many robots. I had to run away, and I felt terrible about leaving her behind."

"After that, I woke up in that jail."

"You were in there too?" Tex asked, turning to Mary. "I never knew."

"Yeah, it was probably because our cells were far apart. I was up on like the top floor."

"I was down on the bottom, so yeah there's no way we would have been able to tell if both of us were there."

"But anyway Sonic, thanks a lot! I owe you big time!" Tex said, extending his hand out to Sonic.

Sonic smiled, and shook his hand back, but then his smile faded. He turned back to face the destroyed base behind them. The mountain was now nothing but a field of large boulders and twisted metal. Flames rose into the air from all the fires left by the explosions, making a gigantic black cloud in the sky. Everything felt still and quiet now. Even the screaming had died down.

"What do we do now?" Sonic asked.

"Well it's basically over now Sonic," Mary said with a sigh. "There isn't much left to do now, except help those that are still alive..."

Sonic looked back at the rubble.

"We failed," he said, closing his eyes. "Me and Tails couldn't save all the people. There were still a ton of them in there."

"Sonic," Tex started. "Don't let it get you down."

"But way not? There's gotta be a lot of dead people in there!"

"But you and Tails were just two people. I don't care how strong you are, because two people can't do everything and save everybody." His voice took on a cheerful tone. "But hey, for two people, I think you and Tails here did just fine. You forced Robotnik to leave and helped make a distraction for the jail heist. That's a lot more than I think me and Mary could do if we were in your position."

"Tex!" Mary said, punching the wolf in the arm with a grin. "I don't think I'm that helpless!"

"Heh, naw honey. Anyway Sonic, be proud of what you and Tails did. I sure am. Anyway, let's get started on helping to dig the people in there out."

Sonic nodded. He started to step towards the rubble ahead of him. There were people in that mess somewhere, and some were definitely still alive. He could hear yelling underneath the rocks and metal. Other people were already beginning to uncover the rubble as well, and Sonic joined right on in. The three of them reached the rubble. After giving a brief smile to each other, they started on digging the trapped people out.


	20. Sunrise

**Chapter 20: Sunrise **

**March 24th, 2314 – 2:00 PM – Location Unknown **

Tails' mind was in a haze, as he lay unconscious. Everything that went through his mind felt vague and blurry. He remembered getting struck by that bolt of lightning, and then everything had gone black after that. He wondered if he was dead, and if this dark blurry place he was in right now was the afterlife. If it was, he really didn't want to spend eternity here.

He continued to run through the battle he'd been in right before he'd been struck by that lightning bolt, and wondered what the outcome was.

_Did Sonic win? I don't think so, because he'd need me to fly him up to Robotnik. What about the prisoners? Did they escape? Oh, and what happened to Robotnik? Is he still on his quest to overthrow the world? I just wish I could have someone tell me what happened... Please let someone tell me soon. I hate this place. _

All of a sudden though, Tails realized a bright light was appearing in his eyes. What was that light? He wanted to know. It was then that he noticed he was laying on something soft, when he'd distinctly remembered nothing but rocks and dirt underneath him before he'd gone unconscious. What was going on? His eyes drifted open. As his surroundings came into focus, he realized he was on a bed, in a room with white walls. What made the room even brighter was the fact that sunlight was streaming in through the open window nearby. A lazy breeze drifted in, causing the curtains to flap slowly in the wind.

Slowly, Tails sat up. There was a twinge of pain in his body, but it wasn't all that noticeable anyway. As the fox examined the room more, he discovered it was a hospital room. The place had the usual furnishings of one. Diagrams of human and Freedomian bodies hung on the walls, a TV set sat on a stand in the corner of the room, and so on.

_I thought I was going to wake up dead, or stuck in a roboticizer. Does this mean that Sonic won the fight? _

The fox slowly slid out of the bed, and then noticed he heard snoozing behind a nearby curtain that divided the room in half. Tails walked around it, and saw Sonic sleeping on another bed back there.

_He's not dead. Thank goodness. I was afraid I'd lose the only family I had left. Does that mean we won? I gotta wake him up and find out!_

Tails walked over to Sonic and shook him a little.

"Sonic...wake up please," the fox said.

Sonic stirred in his sleep.

"Uhh, not now Tails. Just a bit longer," he mumbled.

"Come on Sonic, I wanna know what's going on. What happened to Robotnik? And where in the world are we?"

"Ruhh-Robotnik..." Sonic spluttered.

Sonic's eyes started to open, and then they showed surprise as his vision came into focus. The hedgehog suddenly jumped up with a big smile on his face, and hugged Tails. The fox was surprised by the sudden move, but he hugged back anyway with his own smile.

"Oh good Tails! You're awake!" Sonic said. "I'm so glad you're okay now!"

"Thanks, but what happened? What are we doing here?"

Sonic leaned back and sat on the bed. He told Tails about everything that had happened since he'd gone unconscious: the remainder of the battle with Robotnik, Tex joining in to help, and the escape from the base.

"After that," Sonic said. "We started trying to help out the hurt people as best as we could. It wasn't easy though, because we didn't have any medicines. But then the Freedomian Army showed up a couple hours after that. They said that they'd been watching the whole base raid via a spy satellite, but they didn't have enough time to get their army ready to help us out. Anyway, they got the wounded people out, and started helping to get people out from underneath the rocks. Right now, they said it looks like seventy percent of the prisoners are alive."

"Huh?" Tails said. "But I thought you said a lot of people were still on the way out when there was that self-destruct sequence."

"No," Sonic said. "Those were just the stragglers. Most of the people had already gone out. The cops said it was because they were having a hard time trying to convince some of the prisoners to sneak out, with how they'd have to go through the base. Well, most of the people survived, but it's sad that some died just because they were too scared of Robotnik's army..."

Sonic paused for a moment after that, but then he continued again.

"They brought the wounded people up here to South Island in the Land of the Sky, including us. We're in a hospital in New Earth City right now."

"You mean the capital of the planet?"

"Yeah, that's right. Also, I've got some great news," Sonic said with a smile.

"What's that?" Tails asked, his ears perking with interest.

"The government saw how we fought Robotnik on the top of the base, and they want to reward us for what we did. They also want to help after Robotnik killed your parents."

"Really? That's great!"

"Yeah! They said we're getting a new house and even a place in the army if we want it!"

"Whoa! Are you serious?"

"Yeah, finally! We have a new place to live now! Anyway, we have to go to the Presidential Mansion now. They told me that we should go there as soon as you woke up."

"The Presidential Mansion? Wow! This is really cool!"

"Yeah! Let's get going!"

Sonic and Tails walked out into the hallway. A human in a green military uniform leaned on the wall next to the door. His assault rifle lazily clanked against the wall, but he straightened up to attention as soon as he spotted the two of them. Tails was momentarily surprised to see a human here, but then he remembered something. South Island was basically the human capital of the planet, since it was the seat of the human government on Planet Freedom.

"Good, you two are awake now," he said with a smile. "Well, come on. We've got a car waiting for you."

They briskly walked out of the hospital; Tails meanwhile marveled at how for once the humans outnumbered the Freedomian furries. Most humans on the planet typically didn't venture beyond South Island, preferring to remain among their own kind. Because of that, it was rare for Tails to see homo sapiens at all. Seeing entire rooms of them though practically overwhelmed him.

Before long, they left the hospital, and the human habitation inside that building was nothing compared to what he was looking at now. Outside, there were hundreds of them walking around. There were human children skipping playfully alongside their parents, humans sitting on the rim of the decorative fountain nearby reading books, and still more driving past in cars in the road going alongside the plaza.

Tails wanted to stop and look around, but they were quickly hurried over to a black limousine waiting on a street adjoining the courtyard. Another human in military clothing stood watch near the car, but he ran over and opened the back door for them as they got close. Sonic, Tails, and the first human all jumped inside the back, with the first human giving a quick nod to the second as he got in. The second guard ran up front to the driver's seat, and within seconds they were zooming off down the road. Tails gazed about, taking how much the location had changed after he'd woken up.

Before, Tails was flying around in the dank Land of Darkness, where it always felt like it was nighttime, no matter the time of day. Not to mention, Robotnik's base was made of nothing but cold metal, drilled inside a craggy, unforgiving mountain covered with jagged rocks. An ominous dark forest stretched out in every direction from the base, seemingly endless in how big it was.

Here though, Tails was in the middle of a bustling city in the Land of the Sky, full of people going about their daily lives. The tall skyscrapers gleamed like mirrors in the bright sunlight, and there wasn't a cloud in the pure blue sky overhead. It looked positively beautiful, and Tails couldn't have thought of a better place to wake up in after being in the Land of Darkness for so long. It did feel strange being around so many humans, although Tails got used to it rather quickly. It wasn't like he didn't think they were untrustworthy or anything...

However, he quickly changed his attention to something else as the car left the city.

Even after extensive studies of the planet's geology, nobody had ever discovered why the Land of the Sky was able to float above the clouds like it did. That didn't bother Tails though, because the views from up here never got old. The car had just reached a bridge that left New Earth City's island, and connected it to the next floating island. It was such an impressive view from on this bridge, with the clouds far below, the tall vertical cliffs to the front and back, and the endless blue sky above.

The bridge eventually ended, giving way to a dirt road passing across a well-trimmed lawn on the other side. Trees stood at regular intervals along the path, and at the far end was a grand building made entirely out of beautiful white marble. It somewhat resembled an ancient Greek temple, with broad steps coming out from every side of the building and large columns holding up the roof. A tall tower with a domed top stood high above the rest of the structure. This was the Presidential Mansion, and it was a most impressive sight to behold in person. Tails' only prior experience in seeing it came from what he saw in textbooks at school.

The car rounded around a fountain in front of the building. It featured sculptures of humans and Freedomians working together with one another, to represent both races coming together as one to build a grand and prosperous civilization. Tails smiled a bit at seeing the monument, but before he could look at it any longer the car came to a halt.

He turned around and looked up through the limo's window. The Presidential Mansion looked even larger up close. The second guard opened the door, beckoning them out with one hand. Tails stepped out behind Sonic, as they started up a broad set of marble stairs. The steps eventually led them to two massive wooden doors at the base of the mansion's tower.

The doors opened automatically as Sonic and Tails approached, allowing them into a beautifully decorated entrance hall. A large marble staircase ran up along the circular wall of the tower, which gave access to the higher floors of the building. Grand chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and more marble sculptures of Freedomians and humans stood around the large floor space.

That wasn't what Tails paid attention to though. A large, fat human (probably even fatter than Robotnik) stood in the middle of the room. He wore a white suit decorated with various sorts of sashes and medals, and a broad smile was on his bearded face. Next to him there was a skinny teenaged human dressed much more casually, with a large magenta bow in her brown hair in addition to a magenta shirt and skirt. The large human boomed out a welcome that echoed all across the tall chamber, making his voice sound quite impressive.

"Sonic Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower... Welcome! Welcome to the Presidential Mansion! I'm sure you know who I am, right?"

Sonic smiled, and said "Yes, you're President Henry Rudot."

"Very good Sonic," the President responded. He put an arm around the girl next to him. "And this is my sixteen-year-old daughter Sarah Rudot."

The girl let out a giggle, which echoed all over the chamber.

"Oh daddy! I can introduce myself!"

Sarah quickly dashed over to Sonic, frantically shaking his hand. She was doing it so hard and for so long, that Tails was scared Sonic's arm might pop out if she kept that up. Thankfully, she stopped soon enough.

"Sonic, I'm so glad to finally meet you!" Sarah shrieked.

"Huh?" Sonic said with raised eyes, as he nursed his shaken arm. "Why's that?"

"'Cause you were big and brave enough to go out there and fight Robotnik's entire army all by yourself! I watched the satellite tapes!"

"Well actually I had some—"

"You destroyed all of them just like they were nothing, and sent Robotnik home crying to his momma!"

"But I didn't beat—"

"Oh Sonic, I would love it so much if you would marry me!"

Now Sonic's eyes had widened open even more.

"Hold on Sarah," The President said, dragging her daughter back. "Let's not be too hasty. After all, Sonic is only twelve, and you're just sixteen. That's hardly the age for a proper marriage."

"But I want it really bad!" Sarah said, elbowing her father as he dragged her away. "I wanna be with that hedgehog for the rest of my life!"

The President rolled his eyes, and signaled for some nearby guards to come over. "Could you please escort her back to her room?"

"Right away sir," one of them said.

Two guards grabbed her by her arms and dragged her out of the room. She kicked and yelled the whole way.

"Oh Sonic! Come beat these men up like you did Robotnik and rescue me! Then we can run off and live happily ever after!"

"Err, heh heh," Sonic nervously laughed. "No thanks."

Finally, her yells were cut off as the guards dragged her through a big wooden door and slammed it shut behind them. The President let out a sigh, and walked over to Sonic.

"I'm terribly sorry about that Sonic. My daughter is a little...well...crazy. I knew it would be a mistake to have her out here."

Sonic chuckled a bit.

"Oh it's all right. How about those rewards you were talking about?"

"Ah yes, your new home and your position in the Freedomian Army. Well, how about I take you to see the house first, and then we talk about the job, hmm?"

Sonic turned to Tails.

"What do you think Tails?"

Tails gave off a smile.

"Sure, I wanna see our new house."

"Very well then," the President said, walking towards the entrance doors.

Outside, Sonic and Tails saw a large black rocket ship preparing to land in the driveway near the front stairs. Despite how expensive this ship looked, the pilot appeared to be rather low class. He took out a few trees and nearly destroyed a chunk of the fountain as he was coming in to park. The fun didn't end there though. He was headed straight for the west wing of the building, before he put it in reverse at the last second and came to a shaky stop near the fountain.

"I must apologize for the rather low skill of my new pilot," the President said. "But I just adore his personality and wouldn't trade him for anyone else in a million years."

"Who is he?" Sonic asked as they walked down the steps towards the ship.

"He's a former JARA racer, and his name is Oliver Owl. Most racing fans out there more commonly know him as "Old Man" though. I'm sure you know about him, with how famous he is."

Sonic and Tails exchanged fearful glances. They knew him all too well, with Sonic learning about him from his late father Swift and in turn Tails learning about him from Sonic. According to what they knew about Old Man, he used to be a very talented racer, but his old age caught up with him several years ago. The guy's brain was slowly turning to mush, and his formerly great eyesight was degenerating at a frightening rate. Both of these things had led to him causing frequent wrecks during JARA races. This ended up costing millions of demens in repair work to his team's jet, the other jets out on the field, and repairs to the tracks themselves.

"While him getting kicked out of the JARA tournament at the start of this season was quite regrettable," President Rudot said wotj a s,ao;e. "Their loss is my gain. I've always wanted to meet this owl, and now I have him working under me. It's such a great honor to have him in my service."

With a hiss, a door on the side of the rocket ship opened up, revealing a short but plump owl standing in the entryway. Over his brown and white feathers, he wore a blue cloak. Glasses framed his eyes, and he had a big smile on his face as he started to walk down the exit stairs.

He tripped over the first step and landed on his back on the ground below.

"Whoops!" he said, before he burst into laughter.

He quickly got up, but instead of walking over to Sonic, Tails, and the President, he walked over to the fountain instead. Old Man stopped in front of a sculpture of a human that was about as fat as President Rudot himself.

"All right Prez!" the owl shouted. "Your ship is ready for takeoff! We can depart any time!"

"Ahem!" the President said loudly.

The bird turned around, and frantically ran over to where Rudot was standing.

"Sorry about that Prez!" he said with a bow. "Anyway, your ship is ready and we can leave now!"

"Heh, very good Old Man."

The President then turned to Sonic and Tails.

"Well come on, let's go!"

Tails and Sonic both looked like they wanted to refuse, but this was the President. It wouldn't be that easy to just say no. Finally, Sonic reluctantly walked over to the rocket ship, and began to climb inside. Tails followed after him. Once they were seated and buckled up in the backseat, Old Man and the President got up front, with Old Man taking the pilot's seat. Sonic got a firm grip on Tails' arm.

"You better hold on," Sonic said.

Tails nodded. With a fearful rumble, the rocket ship started up and began to lift off of the ground. Everything seemed to be going smoothly...so far. Who knew what could happen with Old Man in the driver's seat? Finally, once the ship was above the top of the mansion's tower, it came to a halt to hover in midair.

"Haha!" the Old Man laughed crazily. "Off we go!"

Tails was pressed backwards in his seat as the after burners kicked in at full thrust.


	21. New Beginnings

**Chapter 21: New Beginnings**

**March 24th, 2314 – 4:00 PM – Elona Wilderness **

Sonic was on edge the whole time while Old Man Owl was flying the jet. He expected that the bird would accidentally press the wrong button, which would cause the engines to explode or something. Surprisingly though, no major accidents happened. Maybe Oliver turned a bit too sharply or something, but otherwise the journey wasn't so bad.

Right now they were flying across an obscure portion of Elona, which was made up of a string of floating islands rather than a part of the continent. Even though Sonic was born in Elona, he'd rarely seen this part of the country. Every time, he'd been wowed by its beauty. Small islands hovered in the sky all around them, and a sea of white clouds stretched out below for miles.

Suddenly, President Rudot pointed a pudgy finger at an island visible in the distance.

"That's it," he said, turning around to face Sonic and Tails with a smile. "Welcome to your new home."

Sonic and Tails stood up to look over the seats in front, curious to get a look at it. The island was one of the larger land masses in the area. Thick jungle covered most of the island, with a mountain peak jutting out of one side and a giant lake on the other. There was a small isle in the lake, although it was connected to the shore by what looked to be a manmade land bridge. However, Sonic and Tails couldn't spot a house or a building anywhere.

"Where's the house?" Sonic asked. "I don't see one."

The President pointed a finger at the small island in the lake.

"It's right there."

After a closer look, Sonic saw a pile of debris on the isle. He could spot the wreckage of a jet airliner, a rotten wooden boat, several train cars, a satellite dish, and even parts of a space ship. There were various other bits and pieces of wreckage there, although he couldn't tell what they were.

"This is our house?" Sonic asked with an edge of anger. "That big heap of junk right there is our new home?"

"Oh don't make a fuss Sonic!" The President laughed. "The outside is just camouflage, designed to hide what we've built underneath. Trust me! I think you'll love this place once you see the inside."

That got Sonic curious. The idea of a home hidden there sounded strange, and yet interesting at the same time.

"Is that to hide us from Robotnik or something?" Tails asked.

"Yes, exactly," the President said. "Not to mention anybody else who'd like to go poking around looking for you. That's also why this place was built in such an isolated area. It has to do with your new jobs in the Freedomian Army, if you choose to take them."

"Our jobs?" Sonic asked. "What do you mean by us working in the military? What're we gonna do?"

"Well, considering Swift Hedgehog and Kyle Prower were the two best soldiers who ever served in Robotnik War I, we figured you could do the same in Robotnik War II since you are their sons. We're just giving you more in the way of supplies, weapons, and information."

"You want us to fight in the war?" Tails asked.

"Yes, if you like," the President said. "If you accept, I'll form a special unit for you in the army called the Sonic Unit. It will be directly take orders from and report to the President. While the work will be dangerous in that you'll have to take Robotnik head on, you will be rewarded well for it with all of the equipment we give you.

The President turned to face them and looked both of them in their eyes.

"We thought you'd be up to it, considering how well you handled that Robotnik base raid a few days ago. What do you say?"

Sonic looked at Tails. The fox appeared to have a contemplative look on his face, which surprised Sonic. He thought he'd appear more hesitant. Maybe Sonic was underestimating Tails' courage. His bravery had grown a lot in a short time.

Finally, Tails nodded and said, "I want to do it."

Sonic smiled back at him, and then looked at the President. "I'm with him. We'll become your Sonic Unit."

"Most excellent," the President said, as he shook hands with Sonic. "I think this will be a great step forward in ridding this planet once and for all of Robotnik."

"Boss, we're about to land!" Old Man squawked.

"We'll talk about this later," The President said, settling back into his seat. "For now, let's have a look around your new home, shall we?"

As Old Man brought the ship in for a landing, it rattled and shook like it was caught in a violent storm. Sonic widened his eyes in terror as he saw the junk pile house filling up the entire view screen, but at the last second Old Man jerked the ship to the right. However, this also tilted the rocket perpendicular to the ground. Sonic and Tails held onto their seats for dear life, as gravity shifted towards the right wall of the cabin. Finally though, the ship landed with a hard thump in front of the house. Sonic and Tails let out a sigh of relief, as the entrance hatch opened up. Warm sunlight spilled into the cockpit, inviting them to walk outside.

"Come on you two," the President said with a smile. "Your home is waiting!"

The four of them, Sonic, Tails, Old Man, and the President, stepped out of the vehicle and onto bright yellow sand. Between the house and the lake shore was a small beach with palm trees. Sonic just knew he'd love relaxing out here, as he heard the soothing sound of small waves lapping against the shore.

Meanwhile, the President was leading them to an open hatch in the side of the crashed jet airliner. Even as they walked towards the door, Sonic found himself rather liking this place already. The place was very isolated and tranquil, not to mention it had just the right temperature so that it wasn't too hot or too cold.

They finally reached the door, and the President gestured for Sonic and Tails to go in first. While jungle foliage and mold covered the outside of the large plane, the inside was totally cleaned out. A small kitchen was off to the left of the entrance, while in front of them there was a staircase leading up to a second floor.

"Over here is your kitchen," The President said. "And up those stairs is the first class area and cockpit, which we've turned into a bathroom, a study, and a bedroom. We've been holding onto your furniture from your old house ever since you disappeared, and it has been placed up there."

"Really?" Tails asked. "Even all my toys, models, and kit robots I built?"

"That's right Tails."

"Great!"

"Also Tails, we built something else into this place just for you."

The President pointed towards the rear of the plane. Back there, Sonic saw a lab full of lots of high tech machines. Sonic and Tails walked over to get a closer look. Dozens of computers lined the walls, in addition to work tables laden with mechanical tools for tinkering with machinery. What grabbed Sonic's attention the most was a weird machine that had a glass chamber sticking out of the top. Two robot arms inside the chamber could be fitted with a variety of miniaturized tools, like a welder, so maybe it was used to assemble small machines like watches and such.

Tails eyes sparkled with joy as he looked over each of the devices.

"Oh wow! It's great!" he said, turning to President Tunod. "I can build all sorts of things in this lab! I like it a lot! Thanks for making it!"

"Heh, it's really a small price to pay for your work Tails," the President said. "Anyway, this place also doubles as a communications room."

He pointed to a transparent video screen hanging from the wall, which was hooked up to a large communications computer underneath it.

"The satellite dish you saw outside links up to these computers, so you'll be able to easily talk to us when we need your help, and we'll be able to talk back as well. You'll also have full access to our computer archives."

He stepped past the rest of the group, towards a door at the rear of the plane.

"Anyway, there's one more area of the house back here I'd like to show you. Please follow me."

At the end of that tunnel was a large underground room, which was brilliantly lit by high-powered lights in the ceiling. The central floor of the cave had been chiseled into a smooth, clean surface, unlike the stalagmites that stuck up from the ground along the walls. Large construction beams helped hold the cave's wall and ceiling up. In the center of the room though there was a large object covered by a white sheet. The President walked over and pulled the sheet away.

Underneath was the Tornado, only now it appeared to be as good as new. The exterior of the plane had been given new sheet metal, and the hole in the fuel tank was no longer visible. Also, it has been given a fresh new coat of paint, which gleamed in the glare of the lights. _'SONIC' _had also been stenciled in yellow across the side of the red and white plane. Sonic had never seen this machine in better condition, unlike when they'd abandoned it in Zeraw.

Before he could ask about it though, a few familiar faces jumped out from behind a stack of fuel drums and yelled "Surprise!"

Among the people he saw were Zack and the other policemen who'd survived the attack on Robotnik's base, in addition to Dr. Skeleck, Tex, and his wife Mary. Before, they had all been beaten down and dirty due to Robotnik's tyranny, but now they were as clean as ever. Tex was especially a big improvement, since before he'd been covered in mud and even his own blood. Now he looked like a totally different person, almost.

Sonic gave a big smile, and so did Tails. Zack walked forward from the group and got down on his knees so he could talk to the two of them at eye level.

"Hey guys! How's it going? Like what we did with your plane?"

"You did this?" Tails asked.

"Yeah! I remembered you mentioning losing your plane, the first time we talked. We were riding to the police station for the first time in that truck, remember? Well, we thought we'd go pick it up and fix it for you, as thanks for helping to get rid of Robotnik."

"And I helped them arrange this surprise for you in your new home," the President said with a grin. "So Sonic and Tails, what do you think of their handiwork?"

"I think it looks great!" Sonic said, walking over to it and sliding a hand across the fresh metal. It was so shiny he could see his reflection on it.

"Same here," Tails said with a smile, looking at the group.

"That's not all Sonic," Tex said. "Mary here cooked up some food and a cake too. We wanted to have a party to celebrate your new jobs too. We've got your favorite...chili dogs!"

"Wow, thanks!" Sonic said with a bright smile.

"Well, what're we waiting here for?" Zack said. "The food is all up in the kitchen. Let's go get eating!"

There was cheering among the group, and they headed back towards the kitchen at the front of the hideout.

**Elsewhere…**

Dr. Robotnik paced down a metal corridor, deep in thought. Through a set of glass windows he walked past, one could see Egg City. Robotnik had conquered this place six years ago during Robotnik War I, when it was still known as Reppoc. While it had been retaken in short order by Swift Hedgehog and Kyle Prower, nobody had bothered moving back once the war was over. They hadn't even bothered to change the name of the city back to Reppoc. All of the former citizens were too afraid of Robotnik reappearing, and it turned out their fears were well-founded.

Robotnik had started constructing his new base in the middle of the abandoned city, and he dubbed his new fortress Robotropolis. While it was far from finished now, it would be his greatest headquarters yet for his campaign to conquer Planet Freedom as soon as construction was done. Right now though, his robots had only completed the basement and the lower levels.

None of that was on his mind right now though. He was thinking about something else that was a lot more pressing right now. According to what he'd seen in the news, Sonic and Tails survived the explosion of his base. While he didn't really mind the loss of his base (the truth was, he was getting ready to abandon it anyway to move into this new, better one), Robotnik was very angry that his worst enemies had escaped.

_It feels like history is repeating itself. First it was Swift and Kyle, and now it's Sonic and Tails. No matter though. This time I know my opposition a lot better, and I'll remember to make special plans to dispose of them. _

He finally reached the end of the corridor, where a large metal door with his emblem on it waited. He pressed his hand against a scanner next to the door, and it opened up with a hiss to allow him access to the next room. This chamber was a big control room, with a ceiling more than thirty feet high. Computer screens, power meters, and all sorts of other output devices practically covered all of the walls in the room.

He walked over to a large leather chair in the middle of the room, which was surrounded by several terminals, and took a seat. He stroked his chin with one hand, contemplating what he should do now that he knew Sonic and Tails were his new enemies. All he could think about was coming up with the fastest possible way to eliminate that terrible duo.

_It looks like if I'm to keep trying to conquer Planet Freedom, I will be doomed to fight hedgehogs and foxes. Amazing how much my view of them has changed these past several years. Why, until I came here from Earth, I thought of them as nothing but insignificant woodland creatures. _

Suddenly, an idea struck him.

_Hmm, if hedgehogs on this world are so powerful, maybe I could get my own hedgehog to fight for me. But how would I convince a native Freedomian to side with my cause, when I'm going to destroy his home planet? I could roboticize him..._

He shook his head.

_No, that's ridiculous. I think Sonic is one of a kind, and the odds of finding a hedgehog as powerful as him are slim to none. What else can I do then? _

A smile curled across his lips.

_Why didn't I think of this before? I'll simply build my own Sonic to fight for me, only he'd be a robot. I've definitely got the resources and time to construct a powerful hedgehog robot to fight for me. Not having to worry about a living creature's emotions and feelings is also good. Since I'm building this hedgehog robot's thinking patterns from the ground up, I can have him think or believe whatever I like. It's perfect. Now, what should I call this project? _

He stroked a finger across his chin a few more times, and then blinked as his smile widened.

_Metal Sonic. It's not original, but it fits considering what I'm trying to do. Plus, I imagine it could send chills down Sonic's spine. His opponent would be a twin of him that can do everything he can do, only even better! Once Sonic is out of the way thanks to Metal, the world will fall right behind him. _

His smile became a shark-like grin, as he began to punch commands in a keyboard in front of him to draw up plans for the new robot...

**The End of Freedom Series 3: Survival**

**To be continued in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, followed by Freedom Series 4.**

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

**This story marks the end of the "Prequel Arc" of Freedom Series. From here on out, everything will occur after the Sonic Movie. Don't worry if you haven't seen it though. It's not like there's much to say about it anyway. In fact, that was the big reason why I chose the movie universe for Freedom Series. So little is explained about Planet Freedom, that I could pretty much write these fics however I liked and I wouldn't have to worry much about contradicting the universe. **

**That said, I did bend a few things to make the plots work better. Like for example, Robotnik's personality in the movie was really goofy, probably even worse than his Sonic X counterpart. It was like he was hopped up on effin' happy drugs the entire show. oO I figured it would be impossible for the reader to take him seriously as a villain if he joked around that much, so I made him more evil like how he is in SatAM. Nobody seems to mind the contradiction yet, thank goodness. In fact, some people like how I've portrayed him this way. **

**Anyway, I'd like to thank Tocole, Stryker20, and Shadow Stalkr for being consistent readers of my story, and for dropping lots of reviews with the new chapters I post. Were it not for you guys, I would have probably quit on Freedom Series with this third installment. I hope this series will be a fun ride for all who decide to read it! **

**Also, a big thanks goes out to MTP for helping me out a lot with this story. He read over the rough draft for me before I started posting it here, he helped come up with the idea for the Tex subplot, and he was also kind enough to allow me to not-so-discreetly insert his characters MTP and Tifa in Chapter 9. **

**I hope to see you all again when I release Freedom Series 4! **


End file.
